In the mood for music

The late Bhaskar Chandavarkar, famous composer and scholar of music, in a recently released book has stated that listening to or playing a raga is akin to sleeping in the open under a vast sky. "One first sees a galaxy of stars. Then one by one, smaller stars and planets begin to attract one's attention. And the process seems endless and goes on till one drops off into a stupor," he writes. Sentiments cannot be rigidly associated with ragas. They are open to different moods and interpretations.Santosh Sant, a well-established flautist and a senior pupil of Hariprasad Chaurasia, equates music with emotions. "Music is not mere technique and grammar, it is an interplay of deeply felt emotions and feelings," says Sant. He will be presented in a theme-based concert at the Ravindra Natya Mandir on Tuesday. "This is a different experiment. Santosh will not merely play the flute. His will be a thematic presentation.Thekeyboard (Anand Sahasrabuddhe) and the guitar (Amit Roy) will also participatein the process of generating emotions through music," says tabla maestroBalakrishna Iyer of Iyer Foundation which will host the programme. Dr AneeshPradhan, one of India's topmost tabla-players, will also be featured in a dualrole. He will accompany the flute as well as the vocals of Sanjeev Abhyankar,who will sing in the later part of the show.Santosh Sant was bornand brought up in Gwalior. His father is a singer. Santosh also did vocal musicfor some years. Later, he was so attracted to the bansuri of HariprasadChaurasia that he decided to become his pupil.Hariprasad subjectedhim to a kind of an audition test which Sant passed. "In the initial stages, hemade me practise Bhairavi, which has all 'komal' (flat) notes and therefore,difficult for a bansuri player," he recalls.Sanjeev Abhyankar, thesinger appreciated for his ebullience, will be featured in the post intervalslot. He has emerged as the most authoritative voice of the Mewati gharana fromthe younger generation. Sanjeev will be accompanied on the harmonium by SudhirNayak, now India's ace harmonist, and the tabla will be played by Dr AneeshPradhan. "It is a rare and unbeatable combination," says Iyer.Catchthe concert at Ravindra Natya Mandir, Prabhadevi on Tuesday, June 28 at 8 pm.Entry is free. Call 2897 756