Music fest: Tribute to ace violinists

Nagpur: The 3-day 53rd Pt Shridhar Parsekar and Vishnupant Kaole memorial music fest will commence from Saturday this year. The festival is a tribute to violinist Pt Parsekar, Pt Kaole and Pt Bhaskarrao Morney. It is organized by Pravin, Parag and Sachin Kaole at their 200-year-old residence, Kaole Wada in Mahal.The programmes will start at 6.30pm daily.The festival will open with tabla recital by internationally acclaimed artist Pt Sudhir Pandey who will be accompanied by Pt Govind Gadikar on harmonium. The second presentation will be a violin recital by Pravin Kaole. Pt Sudhir Pandey will also felicitate well-known tabla players of the city Raju Gujjar, Deepak Fadnavis, and Ram Khadsey.On Sunday, Pt Santosh Nahar from Delhi will give a violin recital. Sudhir Pandey will accompany him on tabla. The second performance will be Hindustani classical vocal by city-based singer Kalyani Deshmukh.The final day presentations on Monday will be at Rashtrabhasha Dhanwatey hall where violinist Indradeep Ghosh from Austin, USA, will give a solo performance. “We have selected this venue even though the festival is always held at our home in Mahal as this time we wanted audience from west Nagpur also to get a feel of this event,” said Pravin Kaole who has continued the tradition of holding this festival even after his father Vishnupant Kaole’s demise in 2013.“My father had first invited his guru Pt Parsekar to Nagpur for a small concert that was held in a room on the first floor of the wada. Parsekarji passed away the very next year and father decided he would hold a music concert in his memory every year,” says Kaole, an auditor at AG office who, along with his brother Parag, learnt to play violin from his father. “Father kept the scale of the festival modest as he couldn’t afford to spend much. So it was held in our home,” Kaole added.For Indradeep Ghosh, who runs music academies at Houston and Austin in USA, this would be the third year of participation. “I enjoy performing as violin is the dominant instrument here,” says Ghosh who hails from Kolkata and connected with Kaole through YouTube. “At this festival it is the tantrakaari ang of violin which is dominant unlike the gayaaki ang which is more popular. I am more for the technical aspect of the instrument and am happy that it is propagated through this event,” he said.