'Teen Prahar', classical music festival for peace

Banyan tree has organised Teen Prahar, a national day-long Indian classical music festival as an initiative to create a positive environment and spread harmony, after the recent terror attacks in the city.

The idea behind the day-long Hindustani and Carnatic festival is also to bring to the concert arena, vocal and instrumental jugalbandis of ragas of three time zones, apart from just the evening. The day will see the performances of the likes of Rakesh Chaurasia (one of the most sought after flautist and also the nephew and disciple of Hariprasad Chaurasia, vocalist Ashwini Bhidi and Carnatic violin exponents, Ganesh and Kumaresh).

Talking about the event, Pt Shivkumar Sharma says, “In today’s times the concert timings are generally between 6.30 and 10 pm. The biggest disadvantage of this is that music lovers get to listen only of ragas one time zone. They never get to hear the morning and afternoon ragas in concerts. As a result the young musicians also do not give the morning and evening ragas much priority since these are hardly performed on stage. I am happy that at least this was thought about and the organisers have taken the initiative in this direction. The artist selection is fantastic. It covers the best talent like Veena Sahasrabudhe, Ashwini Bhide, Anindo Chatterjee and many young maestros.
Some few items are happening for the first time like sitar and flute by Ravindra Chari-Rakesh Chaurasia, another interesting item is the santoor jugalbandi by Dhananjay Daithankar-Dilip Kale and Ganesh Kumaresh, the popular Carnatic duo form a very good mix of artists. Overall it is a very artistic presentation of different Ragas of different times.”

Actor Vidya Balan says, “Teen Prahar is a wonderful concept. Most people find classical music intimidating but when it is put together so interestingly people will definitely find it refreshing. The fact that this is a festival of national stature is also commendable.”

The event will be held at Nehru Centre. The morning session will be on from 9 am to 2 pm and the evening session will start at 4 pm and go on till 10 pm.