Bengaluru is gearing up to host the third edition of the Mahindra Percussion Festival subsequent month. To be held on the Prestige Centre of Performing Arts, this yr’s competition in affiliation with The Hindu, is a tribute to tabla maestro Zakir Hussain.
As with each edition of this competition, this yr too will see some world-class names resembling Trilok Gurtu, Ravi Chary and others performing over two days. According to Jay Shah, vice chairman – Cultural Outreach at Mahindra Group, the aim of such a competition is to place percussionists within the limelight.
“At other performances, they are relegated as accompanists to the performing artiste. The idea of this festival is to give them a platform to communicate directly with the audiences, and not just via another performer,” says Jay.
Trilok Gurtu
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Special Arrangement
“Every year we try to have a balanced approach of curation where we have established artistes as well as an interpolation of newer names. A lot of attention is given to balance experience as well as promise from the younger lot of performers.,” he shares.
Jay provides that one other vital aspect of the competition is to embody “as many different instruments and percussive styles as possible, keeping in mind the intention of the festival is to create an in-depth awareness of this tradition.”
Percussion as a style is current in so many various shapes, varieties and gharanas, he provides, mentioning Aruna Sairam’s Thrillana Project. “Aruna is essentially a vocalist, but she is going to be using her voice as a percussive instrument at this showcase; that is an unusual admission to the festival this year,” says Jay including, “There will be more contemporary sounds from Ravi Chary as well as the SNAX duo.”
Aruna Sairam
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Special Arrangement
Audiences can count on performances from “established folk, younger contemporary talent and unusual combinations. Each of these groups will be using all kinds of percussive instruments that fulfill our aim of bringing different sounds to the program.”
Jay provides, “Curation is a year-long process as we are constantly evaluating and juggling which percussion instruments and talent would make sense for the goals we have in mind. It is quite easy to put together a list of popular performers — our idea is to ensure that some of the younger, undiscovered talents also get to the forefront. The element of discovery is important to all our festivals.”
On the primary day, the competition will see performances by world-renown percussionist Trilok Gurtu and the Aruna Sairam’s Thrillana Project which is able to embody artistes resembling Giridhar Udupa, Sangeet Haldipur, BC Manjunath, Jyotsana Srikanth, Arun Kumar and Shalini Mohan. As the competition is a tribute to Zakir Hussain, Ravi Chary will current Crossing, an album that was launched by the maestro in 2022.
Ranjit Barot
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The second day will highlight the brand new wave of Indian percussion with BeatRoute, a musical manufacturing by composer Ranjit Barot and theatre director Roysten Abel. SNAX, the musical duo from Chennai, will share the stage with Ramkumar Kanakarajan and mridangist Sumesh Narayanan to carry a singular mix rock, metallic and jazz.
The Mahindra Percussion Festival 2025, in affiliation with The Hindu, might be held on the Prestige Centre of Performing Arts on March 1 and a couple of. Tickets beginning at ₹750 out there on BookMyShow
To a special beat
The following artistes might be performing on the Mahindra Percussion Festival 2025:
March 1: Trilok Gurtu, Aruna Sairam’s Thrillana Project and Ravi Chary
March 2: Ranjit Barot and Roysten Abel’s BeatRoute, SNAX
SNAX
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Special Arrangement
Published – February 21, 2025 05:59 pm IST
