jayateerth mevundi

When the great Bhimsen Joshi passed away, actually it was a personal loss for me. I really loved his music, more so, his Bhairav based renderings.

Now ladies and gents – there is this Jayateerth Mevundi (of Kirana Gharana), a really worthy chela of Bhimsen. (perhaps many of you already know of him and his mellifluous voice, silly me!)

For the past one hour I have been listening to Jayateerth’s rendering of ‘Jamuna ke Teere’ in Bhairav…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zioDWQ50JY0&feature=relmfu

Splendid. Mesmerizing. Lilting. What else!

Enjoy.

the joy of music and dance

Some of us oldies would recollect that a few years back, there was this concept of ‘Flash Mobs’ all over the world, inspired by the ideas of of Howard Rheingold (if my memory proves correct) – these are groups formed adhoc in a given location, to do some adhoc things and then disperse. Apparently these kinds of things still go on – and some of them with a very good preparation and prior planning (no adhocism here at all!).

Here is an improvised sequence ‘Do Re Mi’ – from that film The Sound of Music (1965) – performed by a Flash Mob. (I never did like the melodramatic film, but the songs definitely are lilting – especially this joyous rendition…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k&feature=player_detailpage

“More than 200 dancers were performing their version of “Do Re Mi”, in the Central Station of Antwerp. with just 2 rehearsals they created this amazing stunt! Those 4 fantastic minutes started the 23 of march 2009, 08:00 AM. It is a promotion stunt for a Belgian television program, where they are looking for someone to play the leading role, in the musical of “The Sound of Music”

There is this medley of melodies/songs – supposedly an ad for ‘T Mobile’ (a mobile service provider under the banner of Deutche Telecom) – spontaneous and lovely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM&feature=related

Please take some 10 minutes off from your schedule and enjoy these short films!

mir mukhtiar ali, folk singer from bikaner

Thanks to the incredible folks at the Chitra Kala Parishat, Bangalore and the Information Department, Government of Karnataka – we were able to go to a ‘sufi music concert’ of the rustic gent from Rajasthan – the preserver of the sufiana qualam from the Indo-Pakistan border.

His incredible voice (easily ranging beyond 3 octaves)  along with a deep, wide repertoire (drawn from all over – amir khusro, mirabhai, kabir (of course, of course),  bulleh shah, hazarat shah bahu…) held all of us spellbound!

The accompaniments were a sarangi  (an inspired performance – begging, pleading, resounding, cajoling and at times authoritarian – sometimes leading, sometimes following, oh the soothing melancholy), tabla, dholak and a harmonium. Oh what a team! The energy and the stamina of the tablaichi and the dholak player were unbelievable.

Now, this is what fills me with hope – that, young (& prominent) musicians  these days not only have a well trained voice, but also a wide and deep repertoire – spanning genres, schools, thoughts… What a far cry from the rest of the professional world (especially the IT surreal world), where the abysmal & overpaid shallowness is the order of the day! I suppose, at some point of time in the future,  the IT professionals [sic], would indeed become professionals… Let me hope!

I should not lament. It was a very satisfying day. I would say that our time was well invested in the activity.

May the tribe of these delightful professionals such as Sri Ali,  increase! Lovely.

joshua rings a bell – western classical music…

A couple of days back, ‘wordrunk’ – a nammashaale ‘aunt,’ sent me a link.

Apparently, Joshua Bell (in my opinion, one of the finest violinists) played to the gallery one busy morning –  near a dumpster in a subway station at Washington DC a few years back, arranged by The Washington Post with the teaser:  ‘an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?‘

The link is here, thanks to ‘wordrunk’ : Pearls before Breakfast.  Apparently, this feature article won a Pulitzer in 2008.

May be we should have an evening of choicest western classical music renditions (um, unfortunately at best, it would be restricted to a annotational presentation and playing of the musical pieces on an audio system – say, may be for two hours?). Images of rapturous music of Bach (the father), Beethoven Mozart and Brahms float by… Synesthesia indeed!

Would you say aye to this?

May be we can even follow this up with evenings of Indian Classical Music – both Karnatic and Hindusthani?