Sixty Fourth Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav: Line-up announced for Sawai fest

This year, the festival has been extended from its conventional four days to five, the timings have been shifted to the evening from 4 pm to 10 pm and the number of artistes have been reduced. As Shrinivas put it, this has been done to give the artistes more playing time in comparison to the past when they had to rush through.

Taking into account the Centre’s decision to demonetise old Rs 500, Rs 1,000 denomination notes, the ticket rates of the festival have been cut down for the first time in the last 13 years. The Indian seating tickets have been reduced from Rs 350 to Rs 300, while the daily ticket will cost Rs 100. The ticket for all five days will cost Rs 3,000.

The festival will start with a tribute to Bharat Ratna Ustad Bismillah Khan on his 100th birth anniversary through a Shehnai recital performance from the father-son duo, S Ballesh and Krishna Ballesh, who have been disciples of the late Ustad. This will be followed up by vocalist Smt. Gauri Pathare, surbahar player Ustad Irshad Khan and vocalist Pt. Ganapati Bapat.

The music festival will also see participation of several new artistes. Vocalists and sons of Rajan-Sajan Mishra, Ritesh and Ranish Mishra will perform on November 8, before Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasiya’s disciples Debopriya and Suchismita on the flute. On December 9, vocalist Brajeshwar Mukherjee, violinists Dr. Mysore Manjunath and Mysore Nagaraj and daughter of Kamalini Dutt, Bharatnatyam dancer Smt. Purvadhanshree will perform.

The Sawai Gandharva Scholarship honorary vocalist Dhanashree Ghaisas will perform on December 10 before Shrinivas Joshi will take over. Others amongst the new members are younger brothers and disciples of Pt. Ravi Shankar, Lakshya Mohan Gupta and Ayush Mohan and Japanese disciple of santoor player Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, Takahiro Arai. In accordance with the tradition, the festival will end with vocals by Dr Prabha Atre.