Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
Flair on stage
JITENDRA PRATAP
|
The young duo of Prateek Chaudhari and Akram Khan presented a scintillating concert in the Capital.
|
Reposeful Prateek Chaudhuri.
The occasion was to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. But the venue for this happy occasion was not in any of the several auditoriums and concert halls that the IHC has within its impressive premises. Instead,
it was the charmingly conceived set-up in its Plaza Steps with good lighting and sound system. The artists featured on the occasion were none other than the young duo of Prateek Chaudhari on the sitar and Delhi’s young and upcoming percussionist Akram Khan on the tabla.
The duo cast a magic spell over the audience with immaculate handling of their musical instruments and with an at-length exposition in raga Yaman with its Carnatic counterpart, raga Kalyani. These ragas are the two most important melodies of the two music systems belonging to the North and the South of the country.
Prateek commenced his recital with an elaborate and a highly reposeful ‘alap-jod’. There was a wee bit confusion in what seemed to be his attempt to give raga Yaman a touch of raga Yaman Kalyan. He tried to give a touch of the note Suddha Madhya that has to be inserted in a very special manner, with a slight touch like a very tiny mole on a fair and beautiful face.
However, the recital thereafter continued to remain flawless and even highly appealing. One felt impressed with his plucking of the sitar strings and his compact movements over the frets that had the touch of his Dada Guru, the late Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan. There were quite a few sparkling permutations in his ‘jod-jhala’ renderings.
Good grasp
Prateek did well to restrict the ‘gat-toda’ renderings in raga Yaman and well displayed his good grasp over the rhythm by first playing a slow tempo 16 beat ‘Masitkhani gat’ followed by another in the 12 beat fast Ek tala and a super-fast Teen tal composition that came as a scintillating finale to the occasion.
High praises are due to the young percussionist, Akram Khan for his excellent accompaniment with his precisely tuned tables besides the several rounds of his own highly intricate and beautifully executed sequences of solo variations.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
|
