The musical mixture of various countries was witnessed by the city music lovers here on Tuesday in a musical concert held at AISECT University auditorium.
It was an event to witness when the Indian musician shared the stage with the European music players. Renowned sitarist Smita Nagdev presented a splendid performance before the Bhopalites as she accompanied European musicians on stage. Organised by the Indo-European musical group Swarmaitri, the concert was all about coming together of an acoustic world of musical and visual artists.
It is to be noted that Smita is one of the renowned sitarists of the country who has gained an international acclaim in a very short span of time. She has learned Sitar under the ‘Guru-Shishya’ tradition from the age of four years. Her guru Vasudeo Rao Ashtewale was a traditional sitar player from the well known ‘Ashtewale Gharana’ of Ujjain in central India. From 1994 she has taken the guidance from Jyoti Thakar from Pune who is her guru’s daughter.
The troupe was accompanied by Ramendra Solanki on tabla. The event was mesmerizing as a noted sitar maestro Smita Nagdev accompanied the troupe and blended the Indian classical music with the folk music. Smita Nagdev said, “Emphasizing on folk music, Indian classical has a lot of similarity with other folk music, so it was not a problem for me to understand the rhythm of theirs.” Smita played some tunes of Hindustani Classical Music in jugalbandi with the European artists which made the concert one of its kinds.
The motive behind organizing the event was to let the young students understand varieties of music that comes from different cultures. The students enjoyed the evening as they took pleasure of the live blend of Indian and western music on stage.