Yashwant Vaishnav (Tabla)
Attended Tabla Solo concert of Yashwant Vaishnav. He was accompanied by Nilay Salvi on harmonium. This concert was organized by Maharashtra Mandal Abu Dhabi at Embassy of India auditorium. I attended the concert with Aditi, Jayant, Sucheeta, Nandu, Deepa, Manish and Trupti.
This concert was divided into two parts. First part was composed of five songs by MMAD local artists Sachin Raje, Siddhi Chonkar, Adwait Gokhle, Girish Pande, Yuvraj Kochale. They were accompanied on Tabla by Adwait Gokhale and Nandkishor Banchhode. Nilay Salvi was gracious enough to accompany the local artists on harmonium.
The selection of the songs was very good. Sakhi mand zalya taraka (सखी मंद झाल्या तारका), Yad piya ki are (याद पिया की आप), Kata rute Kunala (काटा रुते कुणाला), Jhanak jhanak tori (झनक झनक तोरी), Kanada raja Pandharicha (कानडी राजा पंढरीचा). These are all famous, good songs with classical base. They covered most of the categories. Be it Bhav geet, Thumri, Chitrapat Sangeet, Abhang.
Classical music is expertise of Siddhi and Girish, Sachin's voice is most suited for Bhavgeet, Advait demonstrated his versatility with singing and rhythm, Yuvraj and Bhajan are made for each other. The gajar (गजर) gave goosebumps.
This first half by the local artists was excellent. It was of professional quality and high grade. It felt like the first half ended quickly and a couple more songs would have been nice. And there lies the success of first half. This set the stage for what was to come next.
Yashwant ji chose Teen taal for the concert. He presented Peshkar, several Kaydas from Punjab, Delhi and Ajrada gharana, various types of Rela and Chakradar.
He has lightening fast fingers. His fingers danced like a lightening and he enthralled the audience. Even those who have never attended a classical concert came out with a smile on their face.
Yashwant ji is a very soft spoken and humble gentleman. His humility was evident. He involved the audience asking them to clap in rhythm and audience complied spontaneously.
Audience was in the awe and couldn't stop clapping. They loved him. Needless to say that he got a Standing Ovation at the end.
Nilay was very good on harmonium. He kept up with the main artist and provided a very good accompaniment. I should appreciate him for being nice enough to a accompany the local artists with just a practice of couple of hours with them.
The sound system was very good but the mike of Dagga was a little low, so the finer notes were hard to hear.
This was a very unconventional concert. There was no build up. Nothing Vilambit. Nothing Madhyalay. Direct dive to Drut, and continue in Drut. A storm on Tabla.
Either the artist chose to play for the audience, knowing that most were not connoisseurs of classical music, or that was all that he could present in one hour. Would the format have changed to a conventional one if two hours were allocated?
A very unconventional but good concert.
