Zubaan enthralls with fusion show

Nagpur: Melody flowed freely at Tamarind Hall, Chitnavis Centre, where three artistes of Zubaan, a music movement, presented an eclectic mix of Indie-Sufi-Electronic music on Saturday. Carving the unique genre were vocalist Devashri Manohar, vocalist and master of electronic music Kanishk Seth and Parshva Jain on sitar.
The 10-odd numbers presented were a mix of Seth’s original composition and a fusion of Amir Khusro’s poetry with electronic music, drawn from his album Trance with Khusro.
Narrating the story behind each of the songs, Seth had the total attention of the sparse audience who though less in number were high on appreciation. Music has come naturally to Seth whose mother Kavita is a Sufi singer of repute.
Most of the songs from the Khusro album were sung by Manohar while Seth presented his own compositions from his different albums.
Doing full justice to the poetry of Khusro, Devashir first presented ‘Aye ri sakhi piya ghar aaye’ and went on to present other equally iconic numbers like ‘Rangi sari chunariya’, ‘Zihale masqin’ and ‘Nizam se naina milaike’.
Sharing the story behind the making of the album, Seth said, “I was barely 15 years old and was studying sound engineering when I began creating electronic music. Once my mother, who would listen to them, asked me to play a loop and sang the popular Khusro number ‘Aaj rang hai’ along with it. That’s how I got this idea of Trance with Khusro.”
The magic of the music and poetry was sustained even when Seth presented his own compositions like ‘Musafir’ which had restlessness of a wanderer, ‘Chail ki hawa’ which brought the whiffs of Himachal and its scenic beauty.
The subtle romance underlying ‘Na manegay’, written by his elder brother Kavish who is the founder of Zubaan, and the longing in ‘Aney ko hai khwab’ were soulfully rendered by Kanishk in his mellifluous voice which had astounding range and variations.
Twenty-one-year-old Seth’s music is just like him. Soft, gentle, well turned out and sophisticated. He understands melody and poetry and this emerges in his compositions too.
In the number ‘Chail ki hawa’, he uses a sound that is akin to windows rattling as a breeze blows. The music for Khusro’s poetry remains soulful and quite so as not to drown the magic of his words.
Quotes:
Zubaan itself is a very inspiring concept and their concerts are awesome as they present independent music which is refreshing. The music, lyrics and the entire presentation was beautiful in this concert
Sushant Chandekar | architect
I heard it for the first time and have become a fan of this group. I like fusion but the manner in which the poetry of Amir Khusro has been set to electronic music was mind boggling
Vijay Dhole | marketing executive