It’s Andrew Lloyd Webber all the way. His music expresses what love is in his masterpiece The Phantom of the Opera and in the process proves music to be the best carrier of the most delicate and the noblest human…

Three themes intertwined when Meera Desai sang leading her Quintet at Natarani last Friday as the first of its performances for a three-day Women’s Day Weekend. One is the evolution of a young songwriter and singer, Meera. She chose to…

Poetic Justice presented as part of the ongoing Abhivyakti Edition Three at KCG is a significant original contemporary political satire in Gujarati written and directed by a young man Vaishakh Ratanben. The genre that has the potential to be an…

At the semifinals of the 32nd All Gujarat Intercollegiate One-act competition last January the number of participating colleges went down to eighteen. At the same time, as every year, there were welcome surprises. Young minds are so gifted and with…

The World Heritage Week (November 19 to 25) brings in some meaningful and enthusiastic observance of the occasion in Apnu Amdavad also, which had some added enthusiasm since the city got the tag of the First Heritage City of India…

Mallika Sarabhai would not have wished for more on the Silver Jubilee year of Natarani, Darpana’s dainty necklace. On the opening day of this year’s performance season, for the music band Indian Ocean it was a full house and the…

Mein Jagjit on last Saturday turned out to be a sweet tribute to the late gazal maestro! Notwithstanding its obvious linear narrative interspersed with a rendition of his famous gazals, this stage presentation coming more than a week after his…

A trained vocal artist, CY contributor Meera Desai shares her experience as she goes on a musical journey with ‘Confluence’.  The brainchild of tabla player Sapan Anjaria, ‘Confluence’ put together a meeting of kathak, Hindustani classical and Carnatic classical music.…

The music segment at the ongoing Abhivyakti has offered a good deal of diversity of musical genres while not missing out on popular appeal and entertainment quotient. And then, whether it was Nadanpatus Gujaratayaan or Indo Jazz Fusion, the bands…

A project by classical vocalist Tarjani Hirani, Chandrabharti is a beautiful meeting of Indian classical and Gujarati folk music. The tastefully arranged performance that opened at Abhivakti edition 2 pushed creative boundaries and emerged a winner. In Chandrabharti Tarjani Hirani skillfully exhibits…

When at her best, young and ebullient vocalist Nirali Kartik can move listeners with songs of the soil and soothe the mind getting one with the core of a classical raga. Enigmatically when she turns to an overtly entertaining format…

On Day Two of Kalalayam’s Nrutyotsavam, Dr Haripriya Nambudiri, who combines scholarship with dance skills, in her solo Putana in Kathakali style gave a cherished performance. In immaculate resplendent traditional costume and aharya, she rendered her visual narrative so beautifully…

Carnatic vocalist-activist TM Krishna, who uses his talents to bring down traditional power structures, talks to us about why we need to be asking more questions today as artists.  TM Krishna is a man of many talents and opinions. Like…

Mukt the Band, formed by five talented young lads from a modest social background who held their show at Natarani last Sunday to a rousing audience response is different and promising. To the strong rhythm of drums and two pairs…

Image Credit : Esplanade.com Kathak dancers Vidha and Abhimanyu Lal have complementary traits. One naturally excels in the feminine lasya aspect of dance, the other in the masculine one. At Saptak when they gave a performance last Saturday, Abhimanyu came…

Pandit Birju Maharaj at Saptak (file photo) Charisma is not definable. It drips and gets felt. Among performing artists, Pt Birju Maharaj has it. That had the audience that chilly night wait right till midnight, as it does every year…

On Day Two of the Vikram Sarabhai International Art Festival at Natarani last Saturday, when I went to my seat I fondly carried with me Aditi Ramesh’s stirring visual and audible images. The flowing voice of the young woman clad…

The two-day classical music concert in Ahmedabad brings together the aspiring and the seasoned artists for an open-air winter gala. Ahmedabad is known for its culture of Indian classical music. As winter has set in, “Amdavadis”, too, have geared up…

  Listen to an innovative experiment in the Hindustani classical vocal performance tradition. A duet between a male and female that weaves through not one but two raags, creating varying levels of auditory pleasure. Jugalbandis, duets, have a long history…

Nirali Kartik and her Maati Baani band who gave a performance at Natarani on Sunday, November 4, 2018, is visibly on the crest of success they have achieved in taking Indian music abroad in an original style with an appeal…

For the first time in Ahmedabad, NCPA Jazz Collective pianist ‘Paddy’ seemed wary initially at Natarani last Saturday of the city’s taste for Jazz. The way the listeners appreciated the concert must have left them all agreeably surprised and pretty…

It is common knowledge that unlike the improvisational freedom in Indian classical music, there are precisely constructed compositions in western classical music, which are expressed in traditional notations. Listening to Symphony Orchestra’s Wind Quartet music provided yet another opportunity to…

Both the musical genres of Maloya and Sega from the Reunion Island, a province of France, excite listeners when played. A taste of these genres was given by Alliance Francaise in collaboration with Natarani at a two-day performance ‘World Music’.…

Musician and composer Shruthi Vishwanath celebrates women poets of the Bhakti movement from as far back as the Medieval times. She reclaims the ‘Mystic Feminine’ in a musico-recital evening in Ahmedabad. The singer swayed along to the rhythmic strumming of…

The Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, though a throbbing national cultural entity, has remained a distant existence for Ahmedabad all these years. With twin objectives its current Chairman Shekhar Sen, a versatile performing artist himself, set to it, it came…

At the Symphony Orchestra of India’s premiere show in the city, Natarani Amphitheatre saw the entire passage of Western classical music, from the Baroque era to today. The sound of a gong gave the signal for patrons to start taking their…

Did the Arctic Monkeys nail it with their 6th album, or not? You may be disappointed, but you will still love the Arctic Monkeys. Here’s a review of the English rock band Arctic Monkeys’ latest album, with its best and…

Dinesh Yadav’s Jogiyaar Mahabharat at the Theatre Olympics created a unique kind of theatre experience for everyone in the fully packed auditorium at the Tagore Hall on Wednesday. Still on a high following the 70-minute joyous performance for which there was…

Within the genres and format selected, Mirande Shah runs the whole gamut of swara notes and shades of emotions with delectable ease in Soz-e-Ishq – ardour-tinged love. Her rendering of gazals and Sufi songs, around a dozen, was all about…

Time stopped, nearly so, when Omkar Dadarkar recited 10.40 onwards for over two hours at Vishwakosh under the aegis of its Lalit Kala Kendra and Agastya Foundation on Sunday. Viraj and Amar Bhatt had held the programme in the morning…

Till the other day, though the calendar indicated onset of Ashadh, the clouds showed an anticipating Jyeshtha, and now when Ashadh, at times content with spells of occasional showers, assumes the character of Shravan, it seems the perfect time to…

A Gujarati poet gets us to visualise and feel the magnificence of the Supreme Being through His extraordinary creation. A physical description of His visage and limbs of huge proportions is likely, in all probability, to be laughable. Kavi Nanalal…

Day 2 at Saptak: Reflection of Brilliance The second day of Saptak festival featured a brilliant sitar recital by Vidushi Smt.Manju Mehta and an enjoyable vocal recital by Smt. Shubha Mudgal. Smt.Manju Mehta belongs to senia mahair ghrana. She is…