It was a wonderful musical evening, organised by one of the noted music associations of the city Swarasankula Sangeetha Sabha at Sangeetha Kalanidhi K. Vasdevacharya Bhavana on Sept.10. The concert was dedicated to Hindustani Classical Music and the main artiste was Manish Pingle, from Mumbai. A high-profiled artiste presented a splendid concert and had taken Kala Rasikas into the contemplative status.

Swarasankula Sangeetha Sabha has been contributing exceptional musical events since several years. It has been searching legendary artistes from the National level, and honouring them by proposing an esteemed stage of it.  The Sabha, presided by Dr. M.S. Bhaskar and the secretary, Pt. Veerabadraiah Hiremat, is bestowing their excellence to upbringing, especially Hindustani Classical Music through their music association.  And this concert again has proved their dedication.

The artiste, Manish Pingle  had apparently expected a good gathering in the auditorium but managed to get satisfied less audience. But dear reader, as an anchor of the event, I was one of the fortunate audiences to witness the best performance and had such a fabulous musical experience, which can only be experienced but not completely expressed in words.

Let me introduce a high-profile artiste with a few words… Manish Pingle started his primary musical education from his mother at first. And surprisingly, he was enthusiastically captivated towards the arena of string instrument especially slide Guitar (Mohana Veena) and got a blessed opportunity to learn from Pt. Vishnu Valivadekar. Later he directed himself to get into the musical school of an illustrious sitar artist, Usthad Shaheed Parvez, and devoted himself completely for a few years continuously. Later   he started to perform on the prestigious stages with the senior artistes of the national level, like popularised name in the fusion world, Michel Messar, and a well-known Saxophone artiste, George Brooks and others. Manish is well-versed in both western and Indian classical music and he has given countless fusion concerts for more than 35 countries in the world. And off -course he has also dedicated in the field of Hindustani classical music and released many more of his albums. ‘Call of the valley’ is one of the best albums of his recitals.  

Manish was accompanied by Pt. Udayaraj Karpoor, one of the best Tablists of the State.

Karpoor is a disciple of Pt. Sheshadri Gavayi and Ravindra Yavagal and so on. He has also been part of several prestigious musical events India and  even in abroad.

Manish played slide guitar that is also known as Mohana Veena in his unique style. We Mysureans are most familiar with typical mysuru style Veena and Rudra Veena but very rarely we will have the concerts of Mohana Veena in our city. But Manish has introduced the strength and possibilities of Mohana Veena by showcasing his tremendous talent to us.  

The artiste has initiated his concert with Raag Shyamkalyan with its aalap, JodJala (like raga thana in Karnatak Classical Music) and followed Madyamkalgath in theenthal and the druth was in theental. The first session of the Shyamakalyan was very soothing and revealed the most potentials of the raag. The jumping notes, birkas and gamakas were propounding his potential and the second part of the same raag was very appealing and the artiste got a good appreciation from the audience.

The next raag was Janjuti, a composition of S.N. Rathnjankar, was very much resembling to a Ghazal. It’s followed by raag jog, the last composition of him was Dhun in raag Bhairavi.

It was a memorable musical evening which was the reflection of the young artiste’s inquisitive cognition. He won the hearts of the Kala Rasikas through his cordial interaction. It was a mesmerising situation to the audience by his commendable musical perception.

It was a good combination of both the artistes. Udayaraj Karpoor was in a very enthusiastic mood and gave a hand full support to the main artiste. His flabbergasting performance was also one of the major reasons for the astounding triumph of the concert. And a big thanks to Swarasankula Sangeetha Sabha.     

—Ramyabhumi