Last saturday, I attended a wonderful Piano concert at museemusical, Hyderabad. The Pianist, Tanay Joshi, about 18 years in age, held the audience spellbound with his superlative performance. I went to the concert unprepared and hence I could not record it. However, I learnt that Tanay was coming from Bombay, where he performed the previous day and to my luck, somebody uploaded a video of his performance in Bombay, on YouTube. Here is the video:
I know I haven't seen any Pianists perform Live before, but after witnessing this guy's electrifying performance of classical pieces as well as his own compositions, I can say that he is one of the best Pianists in India. Even if he is not one right now, he is on the way to become one for sure. It is amazing that even his own composition reveal good deal of melodic sense and maturity. Scroll down to 49:00 in this video and listen along for about 15 minutes - the pieces are his Indian music based compositions. After several pieces of western classical stuff, Tanay closed his concert with these lilting Indian based melodies which continued to echo even after I walked out of the hall. Tanay started playing Piano at the age of 4 and finished the 8 grades from Trinity College by 12. What an inspiring artist!
Another concert I had been to, after Tanay's concert, on the same evening, is a Hindustani Vocal concert by Sameehan kashalkar, son of Pt. Ulhas Kashalkar. Sameehan is in late-20s I think, but the kind of vocal expertise he demonstrated was outstanding. Sameehan performed raag Kedar, Basant and few others and every rendition was very impressive. His rendition of raag Basant is on YouTube here:
It was quite a different feeling to experience to beautiful concerts within a span of 4 hours - one steeped in western classical and another in hindustani classical. And the next day, I attended a concert by Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia. There is nothing new I can write about his performance. I was a bit late to the concert and missed out the name of the raaga performed and I could not recognize it either. But the experience was quite beautiful, almost transporting us into the lap of nature, with mountains, fog, birds. After his concert, there was a concert by Padmabhushan R.K.Srikantan, a carnatic artist aged 94 years. He and his son Ramakanth performed together and needless to say, it was a jaw dropping sight to see a 94 year old man singing so well with such a strong voice. I wonder how do these people do it.
Here is a krithi sung by both of them (not performed at the concert I attended), that I got to like a lot:
What a weekend it was, to experience the rich music from a 19 year old to 94 year old. Quite special and rare experience I must say. And inspiring for sure.