It’s almost 10 weeks since the passing of Ustad Zakir Hussain and tribute festivals continue to be organised around the world. Musicians, particularly percussionists, cannot stop talking about how he touched their lives, shaped their music and impacted their thoughts.
The 2025 edition of the Mahindra Percussion Festival (MPF), to be held in Bengaluru on March 1 and 2, will be dedicated to the tabla wizard. The festival is also a celebration of Indian rhythm, which has now found a global resonance. With the untiring efforts of innovative musicians such as Ustad Zakir Hussain, Indian instrumentalists have pushed the boundaries like never before. His pioneering East-West band Shakti, which he launched along with the inimitable jazz guitarist John McLaughlin set the tone and trend of collaborative music. If sitar maestro Pt. Ravi Shankar was the first Indian musician to win a Grammy, the Ustad consolidated our music’s presence at the international music show with several wins.
The line up at the Mahindra Percussion Festival is reflective of the Ustad’s rhythm legacy. Besides featuring top names from the Indian percussion world, MPF will put out some specially curated concepts. On the opening day, Carnatic vocalist Aruna Sairam will lead the Thrillana Project, which will focus on the rhythmic nature of the composition form thillana. The following evening, drummer Ranjit Barot and theatre director Roysten Abel will present BeatRoute, a musical production that seamlessly blends Indian folk rhythms with modern electronic music, highlighted by Ranjit’s drumming.
Ranjit Barot and theatre director Roysten Abel will present BeatRoute, that blends Indian folk rhythms with modern electronic music.
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Special Arrangement
The event is being presented by the Mahindra Group in association with The Hindu. It will be held at the Prestige Srihari Khoday Centre For Performing Arts, which hosted it last year too. In 2023, the opening edition was held at Bengaluru’s Jayamahal Palace Hotel. The other performers this year are sitar exponent Ravi Chary and his project Crossing, the Trilok Gurtu Project, and Chennai percussion duo Snax, consisting of drummer Ramkumar Kanakarajan aka Kanaxx and mridangam player Sumesh Narayanan.
Sitar exponent Ravi Chary and his project Crossing, have created a special composition, as a tribute to the tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain.
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Special Arrangement
Going by the sounds and style, each act will provide something different. For instance, Ravi Chary Crossing will feature popular tracks such as ‘Yogi’ from their self-titled 2012 album, besides tunes from their latest album Dhvanika. The ensemble also comprises drummer Gino Banks, tabla player Satyajit Talwalkar, bassist Sheldon D’Silva and keyboardist Sangeet Haldipur. Being a percussion festival, Gino and Satyajit will play special solos and rhythmic encounters.
Trilok Gurtu has curated a special segment incorporating a collage of sounds.
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Special Arrangement
According to Ravi Chary, the name of his project was suggested by Zakir Hussain . “For this show, we have created a special composition, which is a heartfelt tribute to the immense influence he had on us, and his contribution to our music,” he adds. Ravi is also delighted to perform on the same day as Trilok, who he had accompanied on his first fusion show at Mumbai’s Rang Bhavan in 1997. “That show offered me a great opportunity to explore the intricacies of Indian classical music. I have drawn huge inspiration from Trilok ji, having played with him at major international festivals,” he says.
Interestingly, Aruna Sairam is the only vocalist who will lead a segment at the show. “The thillana is a very joyously rhythmic form, which is composed mostly for Bharatanatyam but also sung to great appreciation in music concerts. So I thought it would be the most apt form to delineate at a percussion festival, since it draws from the footwork of dance, the syllables of the mridangam and ghatam and other percussive elements, and translates all of that into the voice,” shares the senior singer.
Aruna, who always loves to think out-of-the-box, will be accompanied by B.C. Manjunath on the mridangam and konnakol, Giridhar Udupa on the ghatam, drummer Arun Kumar, violinist Jyotsna Srikanth, bassist Shalini Mohan and keyboardist Sangeet Haldipur. She says, “The material is completely sourced from traditional compositions. It will begin with the rendering of the thillana, but as the piece progresses, it will be layered with the sounds of all the instruments that part of the project.”
Aruna’s set will also include a ragam-tanam-pallavi and her signature ‘Kalinga narthana’ thillana’. Though the thillana is something that she has always been passionate about, she began working on this project only a few weeks ago.
Trilok Gurtu’s team will feature brilliant artistes such as Chandana Bala Kalyan on vocals, Dhruv Ghanekar on the guitar and Rahul Wadhwani on the keyboard, besides a rhythm ensemble consisting of Prashant Paradkar on the drums, Umesh Warbhuvan and Vaibhav Wavikar on the percussion, and Rohit Khawle on the dholki.
While Trilok will himself play the drumkit, tabla, djembe, his trademark water drum and a host of other percussion instruments, he has curated a special set incorporating a collage of sounds. Trilok, who is also scheduled to perform on February 21 at the Mumbai Drum Day concert, has created a distinct soundscape with his blend of Indian and global rhythm styles.
Chennai percussion duo Snax, consisting of drummer Ramkumar Kanakarajan and mridangam player Sumesh Narayanan, will showcase tracks from their album Thrillex.
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Special Arrangement
For their part, Snax will showcase tracks from their album Thrillex, released in September 2024. Having been prominent on the Chennai music scene, Sumesh and Kanaxx would often be part of the same gigs, doing sound-check together. Says Kanaxx, “During the lockdown, we met often in my home studio without any agenda. But we played a lot and recorded a bit, and that’s what led to the basic idea behind Snax.”
The group blends the traditional and the contemporary, with Kanaxx using his fondness for rock, heavy metal and jazz, and Sumesh using his Carnatic training and experience. Both artistes have interesting stories of how they got into music. Kanaxx’s house was next to the KFI school in Chennai, and he once happened to watch a lecture demonstration on drum through a hole in the wall, and that got him engrossed. Sumesh was attending a concert where the musician saw him mimic what he was playing on his water bottle. That musician became his guru.
The festival will end with Ranjit Barot and Roysten Abel’s BeatRoute, which among other things, aims to showcase the new sound of Indian percussion. Roysten is known for his thematic musical shows. His popular The Manganiyar Seduction and The Manganiyar Classroom focus on the music of the Manganiyar community of Rajasthan, whereas Weaving Voices uses different styles of singing in a narrative format.
Using Ranjit’s drumming as centre-point, along with an assorted ensemble of folk drummers, BeatRoute “serves as a musical ode, bridging the past and the present, the masculine and the feminine, and the everyday and the divine.” A focus area of the performance will be how drummers adapt to diverse musical landscapes and engage with multiple genres.
That’s a lot of variety spread over two days. As Sumesh of Snax puts it, “It’s heartening to see so many percussion festivals taking place in India. One can never ignore a strong beat, as that makes your body move.”
Published – February 20, 2025 12:39 pm IST
