Scintillating Vocal and Sitar leaves the audience spell bound on concluding day of Three day Vocal and Sitar Festival of Pracheen Kala Kendra.

Chandigarh-16 Oct ,Concluding day of Three day Vocal and Sitar festival witnessed a remarkable Vocal recital by Arshad Ali Khan and an incredible Sitar recital by young and Promising Dhruv Bedi at the Punjab Kala Bhawan here today. The programme was organized by Pracheen Kala Kendra in the series of its golden jubilee celebrations this year.

Arshad Ali is one of the few prodigies to live up to their initial promise. Arshad, the grandson of the legendary sarangi maestro late Padmashree Ustad Shakoor Khan, was absorbed into the ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata, as a scholar at the age of six. Born in the family of the principal Kirana Gharana musicians, he received extensive training from his maternal uncles, Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan and Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan in the true guru-shishya parampara training. Today, Arshad is hailed as a performer par excellence. He is one of the few contemporary singers of the Kirana Gharana to have assimilated the essence of the meer-khand vistar or development, typical to the gharana. His style, while strikingly original in its creative exposition of the raag, is seeped in a traditional mould. His ability to balance his performances with sensitive alap / vistar, complex sargams and an onslaught of lightening fast taans has set him in a class apart. Apart from performing in most prestigious music festivals of India, he has performed in abroad as well.

Dhruv was born in a family of musicians. His grooming in sitar began at the tender age of four years. Dhruv started playing and learning from his father Sh. Jagdeep Singh Bedi, internationally renowned Sitar and Surbahar Artist. Now days his skills are also being polished by great sitar Maestro Pt..Budhaditya Mukherjee. Dhruv is taking training under Pt. Buhaditya Mukherjee in the traditional form of “Guru Shishya Parampra”. Blessed with musical background it was easy for Dhruv to learn and communicate with music. Being the part of ‘Imdadkhani Gharana’. Dhruv has an exceptional and natural ability to play the ‘Gayaki Ang’ (vocal style) on sitar. His approach to ‘rhythm’ and ‘sur’ is largely intuitive, fresh and spontaneous, always astonishing his audiences.

The Talented and promising Sitar player Dhruv Bedi of Imdadkhani gharana begin this programme and he chose popular raga Shudh Kalyan through an alaap, jod alaap and Jod jhalla to unfold the mysteries of raga with maturity and perfect expansion. Dhruv captivated the audience with his pure skill, deft handling of the raga, lightening speed of Taans. The audience was delighted to enjoy the recital as he doled out with drut composition set to Rag Bihag. He concluded his recital with captivating composition Tappa set to Raga “Kafi” amidst thunderous applause.
He was ably accompanied by Zuheb Khan Tabla
After’s Dhurv’s scintillating performance , Arshad took the centre stage and begin with Raga “Puriya” . After a reposeful aalap he moves on to “vilambit ek taal” with invocatory bandish “Tu hai Malik mera” before his next drut teen taal bandish “Mori Aaraz suno” which was well received by the audience. Then he doled out with fast tempo bandish “ Chamak pag payal” in teen taal. He concluded the recital with beautiful bandish in Rag “Des” with bandish “Karam more jage” amidst thunderous applause. He was well accompanied by Zaheen Khan on Tabla and Paromita Mukherjee on Harmonium.
Dr. Shobha Koser along with Secretary Shri Sajal Koser honoured the artists.