Bharat Sangeet Utsav 2017 (Chennai)

[Sivaramakrishnan]

Venue:Narada Gana Sabha, Chennai

The eight day music festival (1-8 Nov 2017) presented by Carnatica & Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha with support from a galaxy of corporate sponsors covered a wide range of genres from Core Carnatic music & Hindustani music to Music Medleys but all of them confining to the boundaries of chaste and authentic offerings. The festival which was inaugurated on 1 Nov by H.E.The Governor of Tamilnadu Sri Banwarilal Purohit concluded on 8 Nov with Anugrahabhaashanam of His Holiness Sri Sanakara Vijayendra Swamigal of Kanchi kamakoti peetham.

Despite a rather inclement weather during a few days of the series (causing postponement of Sanjay Subramanian's concert scheduled for 3rd to 9th as a special case) audience turn out was good especially for the carnatic music based events though other genres and 'combo experiments' did attract the attention of Chennaiites. The entire package was curated by Shashikiran of carnatica who seemed to be at his innovative best, giving maximum exposure to artists - both known and upcoming in the process.

The series which started with a concert of Aruna Sairam on the opening day concluded with group rendering of Mahaperiyava Pancharatnam composed and presented by Rukmini Ramani in the presence of Baala periyava.

A Carnatic Pattimandram moderated by Solomon Pappayya, a concert by Aishwarya Srinivasan on MS - the evergreen icon of Bharat Sangeet icon of India, a programme by Sri Ram Parthasarathi and Rajwinder Kaur, and a host of several other imaginative programmes including musical discourse, layavinyasam by Patri Satish Kumar, ensembles etc filled the eight days of value added entertainment.

Review of such a mammoth event of more than 25 slots would be near impossible but I would say that the offerings - going by some of the programmes which I attended -were very good and the artists gave their best. Core carnatic music events maintained the usual standards. Several youngsters with a 'South base' were found to handle genres ranging from Samparadaya to Sufi music with consummate ease.

Forumites may search for youtube links of Bharat Sangeet Utsav 2017 for the Chennai events.

Seems an exclusive 'Coimbatore edition' of the Utsav is now on.

[Sivaramakrishnan]

Heard that the BSU Coimbatore events are a big draw compared to Chennai (where rains played spoilsport).

[iamnothurt]

Most of the concerts are uploaded in YT now.
This one with Bharat Sundar and Vyasarpadi Kothandaraman is very interesting .


https://youtu.be/5yXeJ7G00MI

The thani between Pathri and Mannargudi Vasudevan....