BENGALURU: Bangaloreans are in for a rare musical treat from February 20 for three days. The legendary flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ghatam maestro Vikku Vinayakram, Ranjit Barot, Ustad Taufiq Qureshi, Vijay Prakash, Ganesh, Kumaresh along with Pandit Suresh Talwalkar, Sukanya Ramgopal and a couple of others are performing at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall.
This festival is being organised by the Udupa Foundation, set up by the eminent Ghatam vidwan Giridhar Udupa in Bengaluru. This is the third edition of the festival. The Udupa Foundation, started in 2015, deals primarily with the promotion of performing arts and culture across Karnataka. The festival is a fund raising concert for all the Foundation activities. Every month, the foundation organises classical music/dance concerts in government schools, old age homes, cancer/autism centres and rehabilitation centres to name a few.
“The foundation aims to drive a movement that will bring together art, artistes and art connoisseurs on a unique journey − the Kala Payana, of art and music,” says Giridhar Udupa. His father, who was the main inspiration for this artful journey, was the well-known mridangam artiste Ullur Nagendra Udupa. One of the few percussion artistes from the Karavali region in Karnataka, Udupa started his career as a Yakshagana artiste and embarked on a new journey in percussion art, after migrating from his home village to Bangalore with meagre resources.
His determination and dedication to music brought him to the centre-stage of Carnatic classical percussion music. He toured the world and performed in over 5,000 concerts. He started his institution to train percussion artistes in Karnataka in 1975. His son and discipline, Giridhar is keen to take his father’s legacy higher and deeper. The author is a city-based dance critic.
What’s in store
On February 20, from 7 pm onwards the fare includes Ranjit Barot (drums), Ustad Taufiq Qureshi (percussion), Vidwan Vijay Prakash (vocal), Kaushiki Chakraborty (vocal), Etienne Mbappé (bass guitar) and Christophe Cravero (keyboards and violin).
On February 21, Ghatam trio – Vikku Vinayakram, Sukanya Ramgopal and Giridhar Udupa – will set the ball rolling. Next will be violin duo Ganesh and Kumaresh accompanied on mridangam by Sashi Kumar and Anantha R Krishnan.
On February 22, a tabla and harmonium concert by Suresh Talwalkar, Satyajit Talwalkar and Savani Talwalkar, the tabla trio, and harmonium by Deochake. This will be followed by the grand finale, a bansuri concert by Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia , accompanied by Pandit Rakesh Chaurasia and Pandit Subhankar Banerjee on tabla.