Reliving the Living Dream Concert

 

 

Martin Luther King III and Kamal Haasan

Poetry and music; India and America, Martin Luther King and Gandhiji, Western and Classical – The Living Dream concert organised by the US Consulate General – Chennai, wove all of these seemingly disconnected strands into a tapestry of hope and peace.

 

The event held last Wednesday night at the Venkata Subba Rao  Concert Hall, was arranged to honour Martin Luther King III – son of Martin Luther King, Jr – on his visit to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of his father’s prilgrimage to India in 1959. His father was here to meet the Gandhi family and learn about his methods of non-violence so that he could employ them in the Civil Rights movements back home.

Read Full Post »

Sharing the rhythms of heart beats…

 

CHENNAI, Dec 2: Chennai was treated to some uplifting music when Shankar Mahadevan, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Sivamani, Selva Ganesh, and U.Srinivas performed at the University of Madras auditorium as part of the Heart Beat Concert organised by the Times of India. 

Before the programme the audience stood up and observed a minute’s silence in memory of those who suffered the terrorist strikes in Mumbai last week. The concert was also dedicated by the musicians to a common friend and colleague, sound engineer H. Sridhar, who passed away in the city on Monday.

From left to right: Sivamani, Selva Ganesh, U. Srinivas, Shankar Mahadevan and Ustad Zakir Hussain

 The concert opened with a Ganesh stuti by Shankar Mahadevan (vocal)  accompanied by U.Srinivas (mandolin). The piece began with a short alaap before its tempo rose steadily as Mahadevan and Srinivas performed an intricate jugalbandi. As they neared the climax, they were joined by Ustad Zakir Hussain (tabla), Sivamani (drums, percussion), and Selva Ganesh (kanjira). It was as if two underground streams were rushing side by side, flirting with one another, joining here, splitting there until they finally merged and erupted forth from the ground in a fountain of crescendo that ended abruptly leaving nothing but echoes – and a spellbound audience drenched to the bone with music.   

Read Full Post »

A place alive with the Sound of Music

“Let’s visit Vivaldi first, and then I’ll take you to Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Chopin, Schubert and the others.” If you’re wondering whether this is a dialogue from a musical sci-fi movie dealing with time-travel, I wouldn’t blame you. It could very well have been. Only, this was what Jerry Silvester Vincent, a student at the Khwaja Moinuddin (KM) Conservatory – founded by A.R Rahman – told me as he began taking me on a fulfilling three-hour-long reconnaissance of the institution.

 As it turned out, Jerry was referring to the different classrooms in the conservatory that have been named after renowned music composers! So apart from the ones above, there’s Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartok, Verdi, Mahler and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (the room for Hindustani music classes).

Jerry playing Bach in Mozart!

Read Full Post »

Indian Ocean at the Bay of Bengal!

 

From left to right: Amit Kilam, Rahul Ram, Sushmit Sen and Asheem Chakravarty

If you are familiar with surfing, you have definitely experienced catching a wave on top and riding it smoothly to the shore and occasionally, starting just a little bit off and having the wave crash on you. In the first case, it’s a thrilling, familiar ride to the shore. In the second, you are thrown into a spin and tumble that sends the brine into your mouth and lungs. You emerge from the deeps shocked, gasping and spluttering.

Listening to the rock band Indian Ocean live, for the first time, was a series of such experiences as I rode the surf of their sound waves that flooded Chennai on 19^th October.

The band – Sushmit Sen (acoustic guitar), Asheem Chakravarty (tabla, percussion & vocals), Amit Kilam (drums, percussion & vocals), and Rahul Ram (bass guitar & vocals) – performed in aid of the “Elixir of Life” initiative of the Rotary Club which aims to provide safe drinking water to underprivileged children.

Read Full Post »