While for some, the monsoons may mean water clogged roads, to others, the rain drops can evoke many different emotions, ranging from the romantic to the meditative. This weekend, the city is in for a treat with six lady musicians taking the stage together for the first time to explore their musical bond.

Titled Monsoon Nirvana Season 7, the event is being organised by Cisne For Arts at Shilpakala Vedika and brings together six lady artists — M. Nagamani on mandolin, Debopriya Chatterjee Ranadive on flute, Padma Shankar on violin, Savani Talwalkar on tabla, Chandana Bala Kalyan on vocals and Mandapaka Nagalakshmi on mridangam. Each one of them are disciples of some of the senior most performers and legends of the country like Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Lalgudi Jayaraman, Suresh Talwalkar and Karaikudi R. Mani.





M. Nagamani
M. Nagamani

Classical Synergy
Coming from different fields of Indian classical music, the musicians promise to create a synergy true to their classical roots, while emphasising their own persona. All the super talented artistes are equally excited about the upcoming concert.

Savani Talwalkar
Savani Talwalkar

Chandana Bala Kalyan
Chandana Bala Kalyan

Debopriya Chatterjee, a student of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, who has been learning flute for the past 25 years, says, “When I first heard of the concept, I was ready to be on board. Who wants to miss a chance to be on the stage with fellow female musicians; it’s a very unique concept. We will be performing our individual pieces and will also come together for a jugalbandi at the end.”

She adds, “I have been lucky to have had such awesome gurus to guide me, one of them being Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. When my sister and I started learning, very few girls used to take up the flute, but now there are more female students.”

Debopriya Chatterjee Ranadive
Debopriya Chatterjee Ranadive

Resonating the same, M. Nagamani, the first female mandolin artiste to play Carnatic music says, “I started playing the mandolin when I was seven-years-old and learnt from my maternal uncle, who’s my husband now. Apart from being a performer, I also teach the instrument to whoever is interested. My students range in age from 5 to 45.” She adds, “Anyone can pick it up. To play Carnatic music, we use the electric mandolin which has five strings and is small in size — a combination of a veena and a violin.”

Prolific Performers
For mrindangam player Mandapaka Nagalakshmi, performing in Hyderabad is like a homecoming. “I have performed in over 3,000 concerts all over India and abroad since my maiden stage performance in 1978. Even though it will be the first time I am performing at Monsoon Nirvana, I have performed in Hyderabad many times. The city’s classical music scene is evolving, so many concerts are being organised. But I am really happy that more and more youngsters are taking it up,” she says. For vocalist Chandana Bala Kalyan, who belongs to a family of musicians, it is her first time with the concert but she is equally elated. “Music came naturally to me, I started learning from the age of seven,” says Chandana, who apart from being a trained Carnatic singer, has also dabbled with fusion music along with some playback singing for Tamil films. “When you learn classical music, you have a broad base. I have collaborated on jazz and blues genres, as well as sufi songs,” she explains.

Mandapaka Nagalakshmi
Mandapaka Nagalakshmi

The legacy continues
Born and brought up in Mumbai, violinist Padma Shankar could identify the swaras as a child — a natural flare which helped her to hone her skills when she was in a gurukul for 15 years. The internationally acclaimed violinist and student of Lalgudi Jayaraman feels that if youngsters really have a passion for Indian classical music, they should dedicate themselves solely to it and not dabble with everything at once.

“Distractions should go — our field is about loving the art and not about being famous,” says Padma. Similarly, for Savani Talwalkar, who had the opportunity to train under Suresh Talwalkar from the age of three, she had the talent and guidance from a young age. Reminiscing about one of her fond memories, she says, “When I performed in front of Zakir Khan, that too on the occasion of Gurupoornima a few years back, it was a dream come true.”

HT02