|
French trio serenades Goa with fusion music
By Cyril D'Cunha
PANAJI: Hear it right: The International Centre Goa at Dona Paula
has a good ambience but not good enough for a musical concert.
Performing here were the `Nataraj XT', a trio of French
performers. The trio tried to blend Indian classical music with
electronics. This was successfully tried in France.
The instruments they played explained better. There was Pierre
Moitram (sitar), Richard Bernet (sarod) and Kapi, juggling with
computerised electronics.
While the three improvised, striking a combination of Indian
traditional modalities and electronic textures, it was Moitram, who
has studied with Prof. Pramod Kumar, a disciple of Ravi Shankar,
that created the Indian classical style, with Bernet supplementing
him on the sarod.
Bernet is quite a veteran on the instrument, having studied at
Ali Akbar Khan Music College in California, learnt with the group
`Origine' and having played with the Lal Ganesh Trio. But it was
Kapi who was the most dominant with his synthesised electronic
machine, taking into his stride a variety of tempos like the rock,
pop, jazz, blues, ragga, reggae, etc., with a key ally on the sides
in the form of the sound engineer Patrick Jauneaud.
Bernet, during a chat, wished to steer clear of any mention of
playing raga music. "This is not raga at all," he stated, and went
on to emphasise that they were nowhere near the real thing of this
classical music interpretation. However, among the pieces they
played were `Bhairav', `Yaman', `Jan puri'. ``All light music meant
for dancing,'' he stated.
The group was brought to Goa, courtesy the Alliance Francaise de
Goa, in collaboration with International Centre Goa, Embassy of
France in India and the Indian Airlines, after touring some
important cities in the country.
|
Previous Article