Seldom does an accompanying musician get to create the aura of super consciousness. But SPCkraft and Max’s Crossing Over at ICCR — one of the first post-pandemic live concerts — gave Shibasish Banerjee on the keyboards this opportunity. He began by weaving Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee’s reading of a Nirendranath Chakraborty poem into Manomoy Bhattacharya’s songs. Bhattacharya’s renditions of “Sedin chhilo ki” and “Dibasa rajani ami jeno kaar” sans a major instrument were powerful, as was Banerjee’s accompaniment to the reading of “Sab yaad rakha jayega” by Jayant and Gulan Kripalani.

Beneath the calm recitations of Sauraseni Maitra and Sreelekha Mitra one could sense the boiling energy. Sohag Sen’s “Reflections” brought the house down with its emotional connect. Jayati Chakraborty, Arena Mukherjee and a slightly husky Riddhi Bandopadhyay sailed through their performances. Mention must be made of the song-dance interpretation of the Mandakranta Sen poem, “Arjun krishnachura katha”, recited by Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee and performed by Arnab Bandopadhyay. Chatterjee’s version of “Kaar milano chaho birahi” was restless and soulful.