Indo-French concert holds audience spellbound

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 17

Alliance Française, Amritsar, in association with the Department of Foreign Languages, Guru Nanak Dev University, hosted ‘Stringly Yours’, a bass and guitar concert. The performance was led by Mishko M’Ba, a French bassist and Sankarshan Kini, a guitarist from Bengaluru, better known as Shanks.

Moving the audience with their compositions, some of them inspired by their favourite musicians and composers, the two artists put on a wonderful presentation of jazz and ballads. It was the first performance for both the artists in the city and M’Ba expressed his happiness over the growing influence of Western classical forms of music in India.

Based in Puducherry, M’Ba has been pursuing international music for two decades and is among the cream of French bassists. This composer, arranger, producer, bass guitarist and pianist was a student of Western classical music in Toulouse, France, and later focused on jazz and rock. He was a part of the French Reunion Island band, Ziskakan and the Paris ensemble Elixir with Raoul de Souza.

Mishko has worked with renowned artistes such as Ray Charles, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Raoul de Souza, Khaled, Didier Lockwood and has also been a part of bands including Emergence, Mystic Vibes, Lucky Ali, the “Jaco Pastorius Tribute Band” (in his own name), UNK (Radha Thomas Ensemble) and more. Since 2015, he has been a part of the new band ARKA (Ravichandra Kulur, Selva Ganesh, Gino Bank).

His co-performer on stage, Kini, is also among the influential and contemporary lot of Indian artistes who come from a background of traditional Indian instrumental music training. He was initially trained in tabla and Carnatic violin and plays guitar, harmonica, trumpet and mandolin as well. He performs and produces in pop, rock, blues, Latin American and jazz styles and collects ethnic music.

He has composed for theatre, feature and documentary films, produced with independent singers, released an experimental tribal album called “Enchantation? and performed with several contemporary pop and independent rock acts in Bengaluru and Mumbai. He lives in Auroville.

“The concert presented a unique cultural exchange through the universal language of music and our effort was to cater to the niche audience of Western classical music in city,” said Laura, the spokesperson for Alliance Française in Amritsar.