Holi Celebrations at ITC SRA
Spring manifests itself through various Ragas and musical forms in Hindustani Classical Music. Many of them centre around the festival of Holi, which was recently celebrated at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy. A repository of all genres of north Indian classical music, the Academy’s offering naturally went well beyond the vibrant colours of 'gulal'. It touched upon the pulsating energy of the season of youth and effervescence.
Traditional Dhamars, Khayal Bandishes, instrumental renditions of Ragas, Thumris and Horis livened up the programme. The Musician Tutors of the Academy, Omkar Dadarkar,Waseem Ahmed Khan, Kumar Mardur and Arshad Ali Khan jointly explored the Khayal form. Sagar Morankar and Prasanna Vishwanathan chose Dhamar compositions based on the festivities. Instrumental duets were presented by Abir Hussain and Ayan Sengupta and later on by Ratan Bharati and Paramananda Roy. Kriteka Iyer and Nirbhay Saxena and, to conclude the evening, Deborshee Bhattacharjee and Sankumay Debnath, together presented Thumris to complete a lively evening of music.
In the audience were some of the stalwarts of Hindustani Classical Music and Gurus of the Academy, Girija Devi, Arun Bhaduri, Ajoy Chakrabarty and Uday Bhawalkar.