Linking Music, Musicians and Audience

Durga Jasraj, daughter of singer Pandit Jasraj who started Jalsa that connects audiences and musicians, was in the city on Thursday

If a world renowned singer’s daughter follows her father’s steps it would hardly come as a surprise. But when Durga Jasraj took the path less travelled, she raised many eyebrows. Rather than singing like her father Pandit Jasraj she took to promoting singers, and in her words, became the link that connected music, musicians and audience. Though Durga took a step in this direction as early as 1999, with the inception of Art and Artistes, the country’s first multi-media music programming, six years later she conceptualised ‘Idea Jalsa-Music for the soul’, a medium where she created a platform for talented singers, musicians and instrumentalists -- a stage where budding talents rubbed shoulders with legends, maestros, stars and the music lovers got music for their souls. 

Calling Idea Jalsa her baby, the former television anchor says it has been a blessing. One cannot but agree with her. The musical tour in its ninth edition is covering 12 cities in the country-- Hyderabad being the sixth one--with 7,000 musicians singing in 200 different genres.

“What also makes the Idea Jalsa different is that it has a reach to 30 crore people of which 70 per cent are below the age bracket of 35 years,” Durga gushes.

This year Idea Jalsa is all set to enthral Hyderabadis with a blend of east and west, infusing classical and rock, violin and percussion, thus promising audience an evening of musical ecstasy. The musical fete will see percussionists Selva Ganesh and Pete Lockett in an opening act with Bollywood singer Roopkumar Rathod and violinist Deepak Pandit. 

Multi-percussionists Lockett who is also the recipient of Pandit Jasraj Award, while calling Indians lucky to have rich musical tradition, says he is honoured to get  a chance to perform with Selva. “ While most  countries have sold out popular music, Indian is different. Its music is preserved in by its folk singers and has rich qualitative music  played by its classical singers,” he observes.

On the occasion, Selva also expressed happiness to be able to play for the Hyderabadi audience. He however added that music lovers and musicians have a lot to thank Durga for.

“We musicians always want to perform in big cities. But Durga brought world-class classical music to smaller cities and enabled the audience to hear the kind of music they would have otherwise never been able to hear,” he says and adds that he thanks god that Durga became an entrepreneur instead of a singer.

The live music concert will be on Friday at Shilpakala Vedika from 6:30 pm onwards.

It is a free musical extravaganza, passes for which can be downloaded from ideajalsa.artandartistes.com/ or obtained from Idea stores.