A musical tribute to tabla maestro

BHUBANESWAR: While continuing with its series of concerts round the year, five-decade-old premiere cultural forum Bhubaneswar Music Circle brought in a welcome break this week. It hosted an exclusive concert at IDCOL auditorium in the Capital on Monday highlighting the compositions of Cuttack-based well-known percussionist and composer Haramohan Khuntia.Known as a tabla maestro, Khuntia is also a brilliant music composer. And the renditions that the five artistes of the evening presented proved it. The artistes – three popular vocalists and two budding instrumentalists – were Odissi singers Bijay Jena, Mitali Chinara and Jhumki Rath besides tabla player Sarthak Das and sitarist Chakradhar Khuntia, the maestro’s son.Though young, Sarthak’s presentation of peskar in teen taal gave glimpses of his good grooming under the tabla maestro. Similarly, sitar player Chakradhar, a proud of product of Benaras Hindu University, proved to be a worthy son of Khuntia like his violinist sister Swarna who serves the BHU as a faculty member. Ably accompanied on tabla by Kulamani Sahoo,  Chakradhar neatly presented recital of raag Bihag.As expected, Bijay Jena, Odissi’s best known vocalist today, presented a memorable concert with an emotive rendition of raag Marwa followed by a janana (typical devotional genre of Odissi music) – both compositions of Guru Khuntia. Jhumki Rath, who followed Jena, impressed with her tonal clarity and neat rendition in both of her recitals in the raganga aspect of Odissi singing. And Mitali Chinara, who offered a fitting finale to the Odissi vocal segment with her stylised singing, was at her best during the evening while rendering raag Kedar Gowda followed by Khamaj.