The Sabarna Roy Chowdhury family of Barisha hosted a classical music concert recently at the thakurdalan of Barabari.
“The concert is an old family tradition which was discontinued for about 40 years. It was revived seven years ago. We held the 2020 edition this February as Covid came in the way last December. This time we could stick to our usual calendar,” said Tanmay Ray Chaudhuri, convenor of the organising committee.
The inauguration took place on December 3 but due to forecast of inclement weather resulting from Cyclone Jawad, the next two days’ programmes were deferred to December 7 and 8. On the second day, the consul general of Japan Yutaka Nakamura attended the programme, which featured sarod guru
Pt Buddhadev Dasgupta’s son Pt Anirban Dasgupta on the sarod, followed by vocalist Sohini Singha Majumder.
“It was my first musical event in Calcutta. The sarod player was magnificent. The tabla recital was amazing in the way they played like an orchestra, using each tabla as a sound,” Nakamura told t2.
The Tabla Melody was led by Pt Kumar Bose. “It is a concept created by my father (Acharya Biswanath Bose). He always used to fret that tabla was limited to being an accompaniment. So he thought of using it as the main instrument,” Bose told t2.
In Tabla Melody, each tabla plays as a note. For a raga of six notes, like Kaushikdhwani, which was played that evening, six tablas are needed. Bose provided variety by playing the pakhawaj in place of the sixth tabla. “Since the tabla has to provide the beat of the theka as well, the challenge of a Tabla Melody composition is how to divide the strokes between the melody and the theka,” he explained, adding that this was his first stage show after the pandemic.
Tabla Melody has been used as background music in the Uttam Kumar-starrer Jibon Nie Khela with Hemanta Mukherjee as composer.