By Pallavi Nagesha
The fifth edition of Rāga-Rang is poised to usher in a spectacular deluge of melodies. On Saturday, April 29, 2017 at 6pm at the Scottish Rite Museum in Lexington, MA. Old favorites and exciting new musicians come together to captivate the musical enthusiast.
Over the years, Rāga-Rang has brought the audience ever so much closer to that elusive crux of delight. Chipping away at the nuances and the intricacies of classical Indian music, the event has exhibited the inexhaustible source of melodies, of timeless songs, and musical innovation.
Known for its classical inspiration as well as popular entertainment, Rāga-Rang brings in a diverse audience as they, together, shed tears of pain and joy with Rafi, sway with the rhythms of R.D Burman, travel through the rich landscapes of our folk music, explore heart of melody, and touch the essence of music.
“The Rāga-Rang journey has brought great joy to the performers and the fantastic response from the audience at the past four shows has led to the wonderful realization that we are all inextricably connected with one another through the beautiful language of music and emotions.” says Hindustani classical musician, Shuchita Rao.
This event has been described as the “reset button” for both the artists and the audience alike. The invigorating musical journey allows each of us to recharge our souls and regenerate our minds. Having touched upon many themes over the past four years, this year, Rāga-Rang examine nature.
All of us experience nature through our senses and our conscience. In essence, we too are nature. We breathe air, rain drenches us, emotions and relationships stir up a fire, our ideas sweep us away into so many worlds and our community, our earth, binds us all together. All of these experiences, we surmise, translate into art, into music. In this edition of Rāga-Rang we explore the translation of experiences into art.
“The whistling of the wind through the trees, the cadence of the raindrops, the rustle of the grass under our bare feet.. join us for Rāga-Rang to celebrate the music of nature interpreted by musicians over the centuries,” says local Bollywood singer Meena Sundaram.
This year’s musical team has some returning favorites and some notable new additions. We are delighted to add Pt. Nitin Mitta, the tabla maestro to our team. He is a noted teacher and performer in New England and has the distinction of performing with celebrated jazz musicians Vijay Iyer and Guitar Prasanna.
We also have acclaimed classical musicians Dr. Subhadra Desai and Kaustuv Ganguli joining us all the way from India. Dr. Desai is a scholar, musician, and author. Her books ‘Music in Valmiki Rāmāyana’ (2008) and ‘Songs of Women Seers of India’ (2017) are received widely to critical acclaim. Her scholastic research into the Vedas, Upanishads, and Jaideva’s Ashtapadi shine through her original compositions of these works. Kaustuv, while working towards a PhD in Electronic Systems at IIT- Bombay, is a budding musicologist. A student of vocal maestro Pt. Ajoy Chakrabarty, he has enthralled the masses with his dulcet voice. He is primed to take classical music to the next century with applications of Artificial Intelligence techniques to analyze music. We also have veteran musicians Dr. Pradeep Shukla and Dr. Marc Rossi working with us this time.
We have many returning musicians. Our singing cast includes Shuchita Rao, Meena Sundaram, Shubhra Bhattacharya-Chandra, Subhadra Desai, Kaustuv Ganguli, Pradeep Shukla, Shekhar Shastri, Sankar Gangaikondan, Aditya Rohit, and Vijay Kumar.
Our Instrumental Musicians include Nitin Mitta tabla, Pravin Sitaram on mridangam, Ravi Torvi on Harmonium, Giridaran Subramaniam on tabla, Abhilash Mehta on dholak, Hiral Parikh on percussion, Sujeet Phanse on flute, Phil Kaplan on guitar, Shyam Vai on Keyboard, and Marc Rossi on Piano. As always, our sound engineer is Jawed Wahid.
Discover the magic of classical Indian music meeting cutting-edge melodies at Rāga-Rang!
When: Saturday, April 29th 2017 @ 6:00 pm
Where: Scottish Rite Masonic Museum, 33 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA 02421
To buy tickets: Lokvani.com
More Information: imeru.net .
