Ghazals, rock and classical music enthrall Mumbaikars at KGAF

Mumbai’s

Cross Maidan

, done up with many interesting art installations for the

Kala Ghoda Arts

festival in association with The Times Of India, has been seeing a constant footfall of varied age groups in the last few days.

Music lovers have been thronging the venue to listen to some of the best artistes for free. On Thursday evening, the highlight was the Pink Concert for Cancer Awareness by Bollywood singer Shilpa Rao.

Known for her work in chart busters like 'Ghungroo' ('War'), 'Khuda Jaane' ('Bachna Ae Haseeno'), 'Subhanallah' ('Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani'), 'Bulleya' ('Ae Dil Hai Mushkil'), 'Ishq Shava' ('Jab Tak Hai Jaan'), 'Manmarziyan' ('Lootera'), 'Gustakh Dil' ('English Vinglish') to name a few, the singer chose to perform a special ghazal set at the concert.

Completely involving the audience, with her constant explanations of the Urdu ghazals, Shilpa won the audience over. There were some sing-along parts in the concert too that were a hit.

She began the evening with the Raag Yaman-based famous ghazal, 'Ranjish Hi Sahi' and caught on to the pulse of the audience with her rendition. She then sang ‘Mujh Se Pehli Si Muhabaat’ and of course ‘Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo’.

Shilpa who has performed earlier at the Kala Ghoda Arts festival, was at-home when it came to performing on stage. “This is actually family for me but today was special because it was a Ghazal baithak. We always support the cause of increasing cancer awareness for women. I am here just to support that and glad to see the fabulous audience.”

The enthusiastic audience danced to the music that was performed on stage

Joell Mukherjii and Chinmayi Tripathi enthral the audience

Students of Furtado School Of Music wowed the audience

Indian classical musician, Nikhil Patwardhan

Thursday evening saw four other musical programmes too and had begun with a lively, multi-genre musical set by the talented students of Furtado School Of Music, that had classical rock numbers along with iconic instrumental solos.

The next set, Music and Poetry Project was an initiative to reinvent classical

Indian poetry

in the form of contemporary music for a new and young audience.

Nikhil Patwardhan, an accomplished Indian classical musician, sitar player and composer, was next.

Kartik Shah and Nirali Kartik of

MaatiBaani

wowed the audience with their set. The band’s name literally means ‘language of the earth’ and their sounds focus on collective roots with elements of poetry to bring together folk fusion on one platform.

The eventful programmes came to an end with the last performance of the day which was the Pink Concert for Cancer Awareness by Shilpa.