United by music

The Asian Age.  | Nirtika Pandita

Entertainment, Music

However, the larger audience they aim to impress are the millennials who aren’t in touch with the Indian classical music.

However, the larger audience they aim to impress are the millennials who aren’t in touch with the Indian classical music.

Renowned flautist Rakesh Chaurasia led band Rakesh & Friends (RAF) will present a blend of Indian and international instruments to create a new and exciting soundscape.

Celebrating the many faces and diversity of our country, National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in its ninth edition of One World Many Musics: Celebrating Artistic Plurality has brought on board popular Indian bands.

This two-day festival aims at acquainting the audience to the fact that Indian classical music can be mesmerising not only with vocals but on instruments as well. “It reflects our endeavour to bring to the audience an eclectic mix of musical forms. It is to show that there is a lot that the country has to offer. And that classical is possible in both the forms,” says programming head Dr. Suvarnalata Rao of NCPA.

According to Dr. Rao how environment shapes the fundamental behaviour of human beings and artistic plurality is nothing but same. “Artists are products of their particular society. They have learned and experienced a lot. By shaking hands to see if they can talk in a common language is the plurality,” says Dr Rao.

 Rakesh Chaurasia

The first day of the festival will have RAF, a group of young musicians led by flautist Rakesh Chaurasia, presenting a blend of Indian and international instruments to create a new soundscape. “These boys being classically trained in some form or the other find something attractive in the sounds of drums or bass guitar which they then combine with their own sounds. They have a certain vocabulary and armed with instruments, they start a dialogue. And the fact that it is a 101 per cent creative job is fascinating to me,” she smiles.

For Rakesh, it is nothing less than a privilege to be performing at NCPA. With Gino Banks on drums, Satyajit Talwalkar on Tabla, Sheldon D’Silva on bass guitar, Sanjoy Das on guitar and vocalist and keyboard player Sangeet Haldipur, RAF will mostly be playing instrumentals from their latest album and a few new songs.

“It will be a classic fusion stemming from classical ragas, like the old wine in new bottle. And instead of the tanpura and tabla, we have drums, bass guitar, keyboards, etc,” says Rakesh.

However, the larger audience they aim to impress are the millennials who aren’t in touch with the Indian classical music. Hence, rather than playing a one-hour long piece, the band has chosen many common ragas creating a fusion.“All compositions are based on ragas but we haven’t given the raga name to the song. For instance one of the songs is called Runaway, which is based on raga jog because of the fast tempo. Another song Night In Havana is based on Kirwani raag and Whether You’re In Love has a lot of ragas coming in between,” lists Rakesh.

But mainly, it is ‘you-need-to-know-it’ scenario that they want to dissociate from Indian classical music. “It is a pre-conceived notion that one needs to be an expert in Indian classical music to be able to enjoy it. But that is not true, music is something to enjoy irrespective of having its knowledge,” says Rakesh.

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