146th Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan: Musical conclave ends on melodious note

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 26

The 146th Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan came to a close today with the strains of the tabla and mellifluous vocals of Patiala Gharana maestro Kaushiki Chakraborty here today. Kickstarted with a gala cultural exhibition and fair, the Harivallabh was hosted in the plush new building of the Harivallabh Bhawan this year, which hosted a musical bonanza in the decked up building.

The sprawling largeness of the erstwhile pandal was replaced with a warmer, more insulated Harivallabh Bhawan, which was upholstered and laid over with rugs to host the concert.

While the Harivallabh was kickstarted with the haunting strains of the Shehnai and the flute, it saw a packed sitar and tabla jugalbandi last night and came to a close with stirring vocal renditions today.

On December 26, the festival’s illustrious line up included D. Alankar’s melodious vocals, he was accompanied by Pt. Surjay Bhaumik on tabla, Rajendra Prsad Banerjee on harmonium and Sandeep Singh on the Dilruba, vocals by Sania Patankar accompanied on the tabla by Avirbhav Verma and on the Harmonium by Rajnish Dhiman. Pt. Sudhir Pandey’s rivetting solo tabla recital came in next. He was accompanied by Ghanshyam Sisodia on the Sarangi. The rousing vocals of Kaushiki Chakraborty brought the sammelan to a close with Ishaan Ghosh accompanying her on the tabla and Milind Kulkarni on the harmonium.

On Christmas Day, the warmed and enthusiastically attended recitals included a line up with artists – Divyansh Shrivastav (Santoor) accompanied by Anad Mishra (tabla) and Ankit Parikh (santoor); Jalandhar’s very own talented child prodigy Ashupreet Kaur and Anu Bala with their vocals accompanied by Surjeet Singh (tabla) and Poojapreet Kaur (harmonium), Violinist Asghar Hussain accompanied by Akhtar Hussain; Sanika Kulkarni (vocals) accompanied by Aashay Kulkarni (tabla) and Milind Kulkarni (harmonium) and the packed final performance whjich saw an ace jugalbandi Purbayan Chatterji’s illustrious sitar played to the accompaniment of Pt. Vijay Ghate’s rich, masterful tabla.

On day one, acclaimed flautist Pt Ronu Majumdar’s performance entralled the audience. The evening was also ornamented by the dhrupad vocals of Uday Bhawalkar (accompanied om the Pakhawaj by Pratap Awad) and the calming santoor recital from artist Dr Varsha Aggarwal.