Odissi & light music touch heart

Charity begins at home. And realising this, Bhubaneswar-based popular Odissi singers couple Bijay Kumar Jena and Harapriya Swain launched an annual Odissi music and Laghu Sangeet (light music) festival six years ago in the Capital on behalf of their music institution Shruti in their bid to popularise these two genres of marginalised music.Their recently concluded two-day festival at Rabindra Mandap was a treat for the connoisseurs with some of the veterans and promising singers performing solo, duet and group recitals. The inaugural evening that was earmarked for Odissi music was an ode to the monsoon that has just set in – literally – as most of the songs were compositions inspired by the rains. Seven young students of Shruti – Shibani, Jagyanseni, Rajasmita, Sangeeta, Prakalpani, Tapaswini and Rosalin – set the mood of the evening with choral recital. The duet by Matruprasad Das and Bishnupriya Priyadarshini that followed intensified the mood at the auditorium while Harapriya’s touching solo magnified it.And finally, it was the jugalbandi by veteran vocalist-composer Guru Ramahari Das along with his disciple and head of the Odissi music department at Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya, Bijay Kumar Jena that mesmerised. The concert concluded with a captivating duet by two of the best known mardal players – Dhaneswar Swain and Sachidananda Das.The concluding evening was exclusive with the dying genre of Laghu Sangeet that once enjoyed immense popularity in Orissa with patronage by the All India Radio.Ramahari Das, Keshab Chandra Rout, Mohapatra Minati Bhanja, Sangeeta Gosain, Bijaya Kumar Jena, Pradip Das, Harapriya Swain and Sachikant Nayak – who are familiar to the listeners as prolific and popular Odissi singers – were in their new avtar during the evening as light music singers. While these veterans hooked the listeners to their seats for hours, young and gifted singers like Sura Sarita Rout, Satyabrata Katha and Jasobanta Padhi were also equally appealing. To the utter delight of the audience, Sourav Nayak, who is an established background singer for Oriya films, also performed during the evening.