Monday, September 26, 2011

14th and Final Gifu Sangeet Mela

I've been lucky enough to participate in the annual Gifu Sangeet Mela 6 times - the first time as an audience member and then 5 times performing, culminating in this year's final instance of this wonderful event. (Here are my blog posts for the last three years'.)  It really is great to gather so many musicians to perform together and see each others' performances, give feedback, discuss music and just hang out all night.  This year I was blessed to play twice: first accompanying Taro Terahara (bansuri) and second accompanying Koki Yoshida (sitar).  Unfortunately a few of us Tokyo musicians had to leave at 4am to return for a concert the next day, and so weren't able to see the final two performances nor enjoy the feeling of having experienced the whole night together.  The next day's after-party is always a blast too; so sad to have missed that.  Many thanks to Jimi-san for inviting me to join in again, and we'll miss the Sangeet Mela in future years.

Event organiser and wonderful santoor player, Setsuo "Jimi-san" Miyashita
This image of Saraswati-maa, goddess of music, has looked over Sangeet Mela for 14 years!
Baku Hirakawa (sarod) with Ayako Ikeda (tabla)
Rahul Acharya (Odissi dance)

Taro Terahara (bansuri) with Shen Flindell (tabla)

Sachiko Murakami's Odissi dance group


Live accompaniment for Sachiko Murakami's Odissi dance group

Jai Bajrang - Tetsuya Kaneko (pakhawaj) and Takaaki Kuno (ghatam)
Scene from the green room

Koki Yoshida (sitar) with Shen Flindell (tabla)
Atsuko Maeda and her Kathak dance group
Steve Oda (sarod) with Ty Burhoe (tabla)
Yukie Satou (Odissi dance)
Shree (Dhrupad vocal) with Tetsuya Kaneko (pakhawaj)

No comments: