The charm of Calcutta winter and the magic of musicality were perfectly blended into the tunes of Amaan Ali Khan in a recent concert organised by the Inner Wheel Club of Calcutta. Amaan commenced his solo sarod recital with Rageshree, an appropriate evening raga enriched with an essence of joyful calmness. Amaan broke the usual pattern of the raga and proved his skill to showcase a different structure of the familiar ragas like always. The raga flourished with the melody of gayaki.
Amaan played his father Ustaad Amjad Ali Khan’s compositions set to different beats. He was beautifully supported by Satyajit Talwalkar on tabla. The back-to-back attributes of tabla merging with sarod’s intricacies made the performance overwhelming in addition to some surprising elements.
Amaan was prepared to spread the magic of different shades of raga and he chose Nandakaus as his next choice. The raga got its full bloom in vilambit gats in teentaal where the spontaneity and the smooth yet complicated movements enthralled the audience. The whole presentation was ornamented with soulful variation and imaginative clairvoyance, especially the tihais in sarod and tabla proliferated the ambience of utmost musical pleasure till the end.
The rendition of Lalita Dhwani, the raga created by Ustaad Amjad Ali Khan, was one of Amaan’s best performances to date. In a wonderful aochaar, he portrayed the quintessence of the raga followed by an ektaal gat. The stream of rhythmic vistaars and taans in 12 beats cycle spread the magic. The short and sparking movements with tabla were the most attractive part of the performance.
Amaan concluded his performance with Kirwani. The rendition was flourished with mellifluosity and innovation. The unusual ‘chalan’ of the gat gained its warmth through his creative mind, which was expressed along with the tabla resonance by Satyajit. Amaan’s amalgamation of speed as well as melody set the gorgeous climax and the performance left the expectation of many more untouched assets of an artistic soul. Amaan is always able to evoke such a feeling which comes from his dedication as well as depth.
Inner Wheel Club of Calcutta president Roshni Ganguly said, “Inner Wheel Club of Calcutta is the ladies’ wing of the Rotary Club of Calcutta. Our primary focus is on the development of girl child, especially in the area of education and health. This year is the 100th year of the International Inner Wheel. For our centenary fundraising project, we wanted to raise funds for The Early Learning Centre at Ektara, an NGO working for the upliftment of the girl child in and around the slums of Topsia. My thanks to the generous as well as silent donors, for their contribution and support. We are fortunate to have Amaan Ali Khan for this event and were able to create some marvellous moments for our friends and well-wishers. We sincerely hope that this kind of initiative will inspire others to come forward and support us for a noble cause.”
Payel Sengupta
Pictures courtesy: Inner Wheel Club