Attended a concert of Pt. Shivkumar Sharma (Santoor) and Ut. Zakir Hussain (Tabla). They were playing together in Pune after 5 years and this was also the golden jubilee of association of these two legends. They were accompanied by a person on Tanpura whose name was never declared. The program was organized by Sa va Ni Sur Sangeet at Mahalakshmi lawns, Pune on 15th July 2017. I attended the concert with Sarang, Meenal, Jiten, Dhanashree, Subhash Risbud and Ravi.
Concert started with Raag Bhoop. He played traditional Aalap and Jod for 20 minutes. It was followed by two compositions. First one was a Dadara in Jhap taal and second was a Tarana based Bandish in Ek Taal. These two took another forty minutes.
Zhakirji was applauded on this first touch to Tabla. There was a big applause at the end of the Raag. It was raining during the concert. Panditji made a hilarious comment that he did not know that Raag Bhoop brought rains.
Second Raag of the concert was Mishra Shivranjani. He played a Dhun in this raag first. The concert ended with a Drut Gat. A small girl of about 6-7 years was trying to dance on this gat.
Its always a delight to watch these maestros play individually. When they play together it ought to have been a treat. Howe ever, thrice there was a mismatch between the artists. Its unprecedented.
Mahalakshmi lawns is an open area close to water body. As a result there was a mosquito menace and audience clapped individually for all the wrong reasons (mosquito bite). The concert was originally organized at Pandit farms and was changed by the organizers three days before the concert. Reason unknown. However organizers had the decency of apologizing for this. Seating area was an elongated rectangle pendal, as a result I could hardly see the faces of performers from my seat. There were about 60 fans in pendal, half of them out of order and remaining ineffectual. If this program was in summer or even spring, it would have been very hot.
Acoustics were impacted by external noise. Some band was playing outside creating a lot of ruckus. Even the artists were distracted and said so. Such concerts should be held in a closed auditorium with good acoustics.
Although the maestros were playing, audience could not enjoy due to non artist related factors mentioned above.
Entertainment rating 7/10.
