It was going to be another regular relaxed evening, or so I thought, as we took our seats in Yellow Train’s auditorium. Not until Nordic Raga performed their first piece did I realise that I was in for a special evening. Nordic Raga was the premiere prelude to the London International Arts Festival 2016 and a musical collaboration between Swedish folk artists — Par Moberg, Dan Svensson and Lena Johnson — and Jyotsna Srikanth, a leading Carnatic violinist who brought in elements of Indian ragas into traditional Swedish folk music. Celebrational was the word that came to mind. What else can you call music that pushed us right into neat dance rhythms and kept 70-odd people nodding, clapping until the very last beat. Heck! they made us sing and dance too.
Violins (Jyothsna Srikanth and Lena Jhonson) cried. They begged us to dance; to be joyful. Along the way they made me appreciate the difference between Indian and western violins. The saxophone (Par Moberg) filled the space and our hearts as much as the Aadi winds did through the jallies. Percussion (Dan Svensson) stayed in the background but added as much to the experience as the others did. Interesting anecdotes filled the space between each piece with information about every composition, its origins, the influences, and so on. When the audience joined traditional sailor song from Sweden, Par jumped down from the stage and got them to dance to a simple step.
Jyotsna presented Folk Dreams, a composition in South Indian folk style to which the audience again sang along. Par performed a traditional polska from Sweden on a willow flute while Jyotsna kept pace with him with the raga Vachaspati.
A beautiful demonstration of the raga system, through the use of a “raga carpet”, had children represent the different notes . They would move their position and thus change the notes of the raga. This simple demo made it possible for the audience to ‘see’ the raga evolving.
After a break, Dan Svensson presented the Balkan waltz with influences from the Balkan music followed by East to West, a Swedish polka and a south Indian composition inspired by British music.
If you managed to ignore that oddly lit incandescent bulb on the stage and pair of rude stage lights, which stole magical evening lights and shades away, the experience was none less than the one you get from Delhi’s Purana Quila or the Moore in Seattle.
