Tribute to musician Mallikarjun Mansur on birth centenary
By IANSWednesday, September 22, 2010
NEW DELHI - Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar along with other eminent musicians will pay tribute to legendary classical musician Mallikarjun Mansur during a three-day carnival of music Sep 24-26 here to commemorate his birth centenary.
Litterateurs Ashok Vajpeyi, P.L Deshpande and Amlan Dasgupta, musicologist S. Kalidas and eminent photographer Raghu Rai will also join on the occasion.
The centenary concerts will host his son Rajshekhar Mansur, Priyadarshini Kulkarni, Ulhas Kashalkar and Biswajit Roy Chowdhury, all vocalists.
Ravi Shankar, Ashok Vajpeyi, Deshpande, Raghu Rai, Amlan Dasgupta and S. Kalidas will pay tribute to the musician with a music-cum-reminiscence, “Remembering Mansur: Words and Text”. It will be followed by an archival video interview with Mansur and footages of his performance.
Mallikarjun Mansur, born in Dharwad in Karnataka in 1910, was a classical musician of the ‘khayal’ style owing allegiance to the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana. The musician was tutored in Carnatic music by Ayappa Swamy and in Hindustani music by Nilkanath Bua Alumath of the Gwalior gharana. But the two most abiding influences on his music were gurus Manji Khan and Bhurji Khan.
Mallikarjun Mansur was known for his command over a large number of rare ragas like the Shuddh Nat, Hem Nat, Lachchhasakh, Khat, Shivmat Bhairav, Sampoorna and Bahaduri Todi. He improvised on stage without deviating from the essence of the ragas.
He was honoured with three prestigious civilian awards - Padma Shri in 1970, Padma Bhushan in 1976 and Padma Vibhushan in 1992.
The birth anniversary concerts will be presented by the Mallikarjun Mansur Centenary Committee, the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra and the New Age Foundation. The centenary celebrations will be inaugurated by union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and ICCR president Karan Singh.
The three-day exposition will try to recreate the man behind the music through a combination of words, photographs and music.
An exhibition of photographs ‘Mansur in Camera’ contributed by Raghu Rai, Parthiv Shah and Shobha Deepak Singh will present snapshots from the musician’s life at the Experimental Art Gallery in the India Habitat Centre.
