As a tribute to the late maestro, the festival ‘Arghya’ will host a special bhakti sangeet programme
In a heartfelt gesture to pay a befitting tribute to legendary musician Pandit Ravi Shankar – one of the two founder artistes of Saptak – the 2013 edition of the festival has been completely dedicated to him. In 1980, Pandit Ravi Shankar, guru of sitarist Manju Mehta, and late tabla icon Kishan Maharaj, guru of late Nandan Mehta, laid the foundation of the 13-day-long music festival Saptak in Ahmedabad. And since then the connection has persisted intensely.
Disciple of Ravi Shankar and founder member of Saptak, Manju Mehta said, “The 33rd music festival will be a special dedication to Pandit Ravi Shankar Maharaj. The theme of the festival is the spiritual aspect which elevates the purpose of pursuing and creating classical music and is titled Arghya (offering).”
Saptak 2013 will pay tribute to Ashwini Bhatt and Geeta Sarabhai for their immense support to Saptak. The festival, beginning on January 1 will continue till January 13, and will feature more than 150 artistes in 15 sessions.
To re-establish the traditional belief of pursuing classical music for spiritual gain, Saptak 2013 is themed on Bhakti Sangeet. This is the first time that six significant Bhakti music traditions of the country that include Haveli Sangeet (Gujarat and Rajasthan), Kabirvani (Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh), Kurbani (Punjab) Sufi (western India), Abhang (Maharashtra) and Kalikirtan (Bengal) will be performed live on the prestigious platform of Saptak.
Legendary artists like Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia (flute), Pt Ajoy Chakraborty (vocal), Pt Jasraj (vocal), Pt Rajan Sajan Mishra (vocal), Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (mohan veena), Gaundecha Brothers (vocal), Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma (santoor) have been performing at more than 45 of the total 60 festivals organised by Saptak during the past 33 years.
Praful Anubhai, founder member of Saptak said, “To re-establish the link of the spiritual purpose of the pursuit of music, we plan to include a special write-up by Mukesh Garg, critic and writer of music elaborating on the connection.”
Artistes from abroad, including Josh Bennet (sitar) from Australia and Takka Hiero from Japan (santoor), will be featured at this festival which will be hosted at Amrut Modi Hall.
