Music in the Park was a joy, to say the least. It felt like a reawakening of the art music scene here in Delhi following two years of relative inactivity. As with so many recent happenings, the event carried the gravity of being the first of its kind in two full calendar years. Instead of writing a play-by-play review, I'll share some highlights. Truth be told, I outright missed a couple sets I would have loved to have seen, namely Vikku Vanayakram and Parween Sultana on Saturday evening. The concert started late, some of the earlier performances ran long, and the concession scene proved minimal. Watching live music is great and all, but sitting for long periods without food or drink has its limits. Ashwini Bhide Deshpande sang beautiful khayal Sunday evening, but I was too far away to get decent recordings.
In my last post, I shared the above clip from Sanjeev and Ashwani Shankar's shehnai performance, accompanied on tabla by Mithilesh Jha, that opened the two-day concert in Nehru Park. I'm sharing it again here for the sake of formatting. I always love me some shehnai, and the brotherly vibes between Sanjeev and Ashwani were strong. Mithilesh, whose name I didn't know prior to seeing him perform, really impressed me. His tabla tone and clarity were about as good as it gets. I hate to stereotype a whole demographic, but Indian audio engineers are notoriously mediocre, at least in the live audio realm. I have no idea what goes on in the studio. Lord knows this particular crew had their fair share of issues, including outrageously piercing feedback early in Shankar brothers' performance. That said, whatever they did to Mithilesh's tabla worked perfectly. A large share of the credit has to go to Mithilesh-ji himself, of course.
My level of familiarity with Carnatic vocal music is quite minimal, but I like to think I know good drumming when I hear it. Sanjay Subrahmanyan's Saturday afternoon set was an undeniable crowd pleaser from beginning to end, and the highlight for me was Neyveli Venkatesh on mridangam. I don't get to see a lot of mridangam, but I tip my hat to this fella. The stamina and rhythmic dexterity he displayed throughout the set was admirable. The above clip shows his longest solo passage.
Bahauddin Dagar. Where to start. Well first off, I guess it's worth noting that I'm a sucker for the Rudra Veena. When I saw Bahauddin Dagar would be opening Day 2, I made sure to get there early enough to find a seat on the cushions up front. Sunday was hotter and not as breezy as Saturday, and by the time Bahauddin launched into his alap the the sun was low enough to cut under the canopy and blast me pretty much directly in the face. I didn't really care. The music was sublime. The Dagar family are hereditary dhrupad specialists par excellence, and Bahauddin represents something like the twentieth generation of that family inheritance. Talk about baggage. He was exceptional, as expected. The alap was the highlight, as tends to be the case in dhrupad, but I was so transfixed I couldn't bring myself to pull out my phone and take a video, particularly not while sitting up front like that. It felt sacrilegious. Once Bahauddin moved to a composition and Sanjay Agle entered on pakhawaj I felt empowered to record a short clip. These thirty seconds hardly do the performance justice. Do yourself a favor when you need something calming this week and listen to his rendition of Raga Bhimpalasi on Spotify or wherever music is streamed.
No offense to Tajendra Majumdar on sarod, who performed well, but the highlight of his set was seeing Ojas Adhiya on tabla from fifteen feet away. That's the risk you run when you hire one of the hottest young tabla players on the planet to accompany you. He knew what he was doing. What to say about Ojas. It's hard to put into words. I've actually seen him perform three times this week, this being the first, and most recently at Stein Auditorium last night, where he played a mind-bending tabla solo. He's one of these guys who started playing right out of the cradle and never looked back. Every time he gets introduced they talk about how he's in some Indian record book as the youngest tabla player ever. Not sure exactly what that means, since I'm pretty sure you could put any baby in front of a set of tabla and they'd at least slap at it a bit, but I know Ojas was performing by the age of four. Now he's 34. Born in 1987 just like me. I'll never be that, but he's an inspiration to be sure. If anyone manages to carry the mantle once Zakir Hussain passes on, my money is on that person being Ojas.
The last two sets on Sunday got swapped, due to issues with Shahid Parvez's sitar, but that meant I got to see Sajan Mishra, whose set I might otherwise have skipped. Sajan and his brother Rajan Mishra performed together for 57 years as one of the preeminent Hindustani khayal vocal duos. Rajan passed away in April 2021 after suffering complications related to covid. Sajan was quite straightforward with the audience about his profound heartbreak. 57 years performing together. Can you imagine? I'm tearing up just thinking about it. In any case, Sajan is keeping the music alive and now has his son, Swaransh, singing alongside him. This was one of those sets where I didn't know quite what to expect and ended up getting my mind blown. Sajan's voice is one of the clearest I've ever heard. Astonishing really. The clip above is taken from latter portion of the performance when he was really hitting his stride. As an audience we were all shaking our heads in disbelief.
Shahid Parvez is a sitar legend. As one of the principle exponents of the Etawah (Imdadkhani) Gharana, Shahid requires little introduction in India. He's a consummate performer, even well into his seventh decade. November 2019, I actually saw him give a concert at UVA before heading back out west and into the covid abyss. That performance was solid, but sorry to whoever was playing tabla that night, he wasn't Ojas Adhiya. Seeing these two together, old maestro and young lion, was thrilling. This Saturday Shahid-ji gives another free concert at Lal Qila (the Red Fort) here in Delhi. I'll certainly be there.
Ojas Adhiya ripping it once again
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