Close on the heels of the just-concluded Mukteswar Dance Festival in the city, the stage is set for the three-day annual Rajarani Music Festival commencing on Wednesday (January 18) on the sprawling green lawns of the 11th-century Rajarani Temple that represents the pinnacle of the Kalinga temple architecture. The festival is being hosted for the past 15 years by the Odisha Tourism.
“The festival seeks to celebrate the beauty of music while providing patronage to Indian classical music apart from promoting cultural and heritage tourism. It also aims at highlighting Bhubaneswar as a city of culture,” explained Odisha Tourism Deputy Director Utpal Pati.
The festival showcases stalwarts of three Indian classical music traditions, Carnatic, Hindustani and Odishi, both vocal and instrumental.
This time, the inaugural evening will feature recitals by veteran Hindustani Vocalist Ustad Rashid Khan from Kolkata followed by the Grammy awardee Mohan Veena exponent Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt from New Delhi. The second evening will have Odishi vocal recital by Odisha’s young and gifted Rupak Kumar Parida, who is a proud product of the Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya.
Immensely popular Hindi film singer Suresh Wadekar will perform Hindustani music during the evening.
The closing evening will showcase Odisha’s veteran Hindustani vocalist Pandit Debendra Narayan Satpathy, and the grand finale to the festival will come through legendary violinist N Rajam from Varanasi. The concerts will be telecast live on DD-Bharati. Entry to the festival is free.