BENGAL CLASSICAL MUSIC FESTIVAL 2016 World’s biggest classical music event back in town
Choreographed by renowned dancer and choreographer Sharmila Banerjee, a group of artistes from Bangladesh perform on the opening day of the fifth edition of ‘Bengal Classical Music Festival 2016’ at the Bangladesh Army Stadium in the capital last night. Photo: Jaki Zaman
The fifth edition of the Bengal Classical Music Festival (BCMF 2016)–the world’s biggest classical music festival in terms of the number of performers on a single stage, audience capacity and duration–began yesterday evening at the Bangladesh Army Stadium in the capital. This year’s festival has been dedicated to ambidextrous poet-writer Syed Shamsul Haq who passed away recently. The festival will take place every day from 7pm to 5am until November 28.
The festival kicked off with the fascinating dance performance by a group of Bangladeshi artistes, which was choreographed by renowned dancer and choreographer Sharmila Banerjee from Bangladesh. Then, the second presentation of the first night was a duet performance by Pravin Godkhindi (Flute) and Ratish Tagde (Violin)—two eminent instrumental artistes from India.
Other performances of the first night were— Khayal by V. Girija Devi, Sarod by Ust Aashish Khan, Jasrangi duet (vocal) by V. Ashwini Bhide Deshpande and Pt Sanjeev Abhyankar and Violin by Dr L Subramaniam.
This year, a total of 165 Bangladeshi artistes and 82 Indian artistes will perform on one stage during the five-day extravaganza. Besides, 17 foreign artistes will perform for the first time at the festival.
Like previous years, renowned dance artiste Munmun Ahmed and eminent classical singer Priyanka Gope, among others, are the major artistes from Bangladesh are performing at the festival.
On the other hand, Girija Devi, an iconic Indian classical vocalist of the Seniya and Banaras Gharana, is a special attraction at the festival this year. Besides, veteran Indian sarode artiste Aashish Khan along with renowned tabla artiste from India Bickram Ghosh, noted Indian vocal artistes Ashwini Bhide and Sanjeev Abhyankar, internationally-acclaimed violinist Dr L Subramaniam from India and illustrious exponent of the Odissi tradition Madhavi Mudgal are also the headlining performers at the festival this year.
Moreover, this year’s festival includes the captivating performance of internationally-acclaimed exponent of the bansuri Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma and his son Rahul Sharma, Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar, Ustad Rashid Khan, North-Indian solo sitar and surbahar artiste Kushal Das, among others.
Presented by Square, ‘Bengal Classical Music Festival 2016’ is supported by BRAC Bank.