Journalism of Courage
Promising young singers and artistes from different gharanas will feature prominently at the 63rd edition of Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav, which will take place at the New English School, Ramanbaug’s ground, from December 10 to 13. Shehnai player Namrata Gaikwad, Kirana Gharana’s Amjad Ali and Pt Ajoy Chakraborty’s disciple Shuchismita Das are among the young performers who will perform at the festival.
The festival would be held from 3 pm to 10 pm on the first and third day, and from 3:30 pm on the second day. The last day of the carnival will have two sessions-the first from 8 am to 12 pm, and the second from 3 pm to 10 pm. The last session may get extended till 12 midnight, as there are seven performances and permission for the same has been granted by the authorities concerned, said Shrinivas Joshi, son of Bhimsen Joshi, and executive president of Arya Sangeet Prasarak Mandal (ASPM).
The festival will start with the performance of Namrata Gaikwad, the first female shehnai player. It would be followed by a joint performance of Savani Kulkarni and Shilpa Puntambekar of the legendry Bhaskarbua Bakhale family. Subsequently, senior vocalist of Kirana Gharana Pt. Vishwanath will perform before the audience. The first day will end with a duet by Pt. Rajan and Pt. Sajan Mishra.
The second day will begin with a recital by vocalist Suchismita Das followed by a performance by Amjad Ali, a disciple of Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan. World-renowned sitarist Niladri Kumar will perform after Ali. The concluding performance of the day will by veteran vocalist Pt. Jasraj.
The third day will feature Bharati Pratap, a vocalist of Agra Gharana, Raghunandan Panshikar of Jaipur Gharana and a disciple of Kishori Amonkar, flute player Pravin Godkhindi and renowned Kathak dancer of Jaipur Gharana Rajendra Gangani. The day will end with Pt. Ulhas Kashalkar’s renditions.
The last day of this year’s Sawai will be dedicated to legendary artiste Dr Nanasaheb Deshpande to mark his 100th birth anniversary. The morning session will start with a performance by vocalist Shounak Abhisheki, the son and disciple of Pt. Jitendra Abhisheki. He will be followed by sarangi player Dhruba Ghosh. The morning session will end with Pandita Milini Rajurkar’s performance.
Stalwarts like Padma Deshpande, Bharati Vaishampayan, Upendra Bhat and Shubha Mudgal will perform in the last session of the day followed by Suresh Wadkar, who was going to sing last year, but couldn’t do so due to disruption by rain. As per tradition, the festival will end with the performance of Prabha Atre, a veteran from the Kirana Gharana.
The pandal of the festival will be covered with tin shade to avoid any disruption by rain like last year. The rates for season tickets have been increased to Rs. 3000, due to the government’s new directives of charging service tax on tickets above INR 500. For Indian seating, the rates are unchanged at INR 350.
ASPM’s initiative to show the performances online in high definition to music lovers all over the world on pay per song basis has been discontinued this year. The Mandal had tied up with Indian Magic Eye for executing the project. “There were many technical errors in the recordings and the artistes were not comfortable with the recording either, so we decided to scrap it,” Joshi said.
