Violinist Mysore Manjunath sets tune for Yoga Anthem with his Raaga ‘Bharata’

Mysuru: The Centre for Soft Power (CSP), in collaboration with India Foundation and Indic Academy, has come up with ‘Yoga Niyoga’, a unique project that pays tribute to Yoga through Music, Naadam and Sanskrit verses. Over 20 artistes, musicians and dancers have come together to create an audio-video tribute to Yoga Shastra.

The song will be released in multiple venues all over India and abroad on June 21, the International Day of Yoga. Dr. Nagendra, Founder Director, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana (S-Vyasa) will release it in the British Parliament on the same day.  

The song has been composed by Mysore Manjunath, a violinist who has performed in more than 50 countries. He has set this Anthem to the tune of the newly-created Raaga ‘Bharata’, also composed by Manjunath. Musicians and vocalists from different genres of music, including Karnatak music, Hindustani, Dhrupad Sangeeth, Western music, jazz, country music and Japanese music have come together to perform for the song. Remarkably, over 14 traditional instruments were used.

The lyrics for the song have been written by Bengaluru-based Shatavadhani R. Ganesh, a practitioner of the art of avadhana, a polyglot, an author in Sanskrit and Kannada and an extempore poet in multiple languages. Praveen D. Rao, tabla exponent, has put together the recordings of the musicians.

Manjunath said that the Raaga was the fruit of hard labour for days together. “The corpus of Indian classical music already has more than 15,000 Raagas and creating a new Raaga is not easy. I have always dreamt of enriching the Yoga Day celebrations and that dream has now come true with the Anthem set to my Raaga Bharata,” he said.

There are several firsts in this project. An Anthem has been created for India’s great Yoga Vidya by a contemporary poet, a new raga has been found and named to resonate with the spirit of the song and artistes of all hues — vocalists, instrumentalists and musicians of different genres have come together to create a tribute to Yoga.

Some of the most eminent names in Indian classical have contributed to the composition of the Yoga Anthem. They are Pandit Ronu Majumdar (flautist), Vijay Prakash (playback singer), Pandit Sanjeev Abhyankar (Hindustani vocalist), Gundecha Bandhu (Drupad vocalist), Jayanthi Kumaresh (Saraswathi Veena), Rafique Khan (Sitarist), Ramdas Palsule (Tabla) and Bombay Jayashree (Karnatak vocalist).

Besides stalwarts of Indian music, the production of the Anthem has also seen many international musicians contributing to it including Alice Barron (Western Classical violinist), Ned McGovan (Western Classical flautist), Keiko Shichijo (pianist from Japan) and Trina Basu (Canadian Jazz violinist), among others.

On his Raaga Bharata, Manjunath said that two months back he was requested to compose a Yoga Anthem. “I wanted to try out something new and thought of creating a new Raaga for it. After a few attempts, I was able to create one while I was travelling. I recorded it immediately and I discovered that the Raaga was fresh. I even checked with a few music scholars and they too confirmed that it is a new Raaga and I named it Bharata, India’s legendary after whom our nation has been named,” he said.

On the response so far to the Yoga Anthem, Manjunath said that as of now, the Anthem was only released to a limited audience. “The response is overwhelmingly positive,” he said.