post news network, Bhubaneswar, May 20: The two-day festival of classical and semi classical music organised by the Upasana Cultural Trust, which started Tuesday at the Soochana Bhawan has concluded here Wednesday.
On the first day of the 3rd edition of this musical extravaganza, a wide variety of performances of classical music by around 28 students of Guru Karunakar Nayak, also a member of the trust, mesmerised scores of audiences. The performances were basically based on classical ragas such as Bhopali, Kedar, Bihag, Patdeep, Malkosh, Durga, Hameer, Shyam Kalyan and others.
Only three years old, the institute mainly focuses on vocal and instruments and trains its student on classical and semi-classical music. “In our institute, apart from training students in classical music we also train them in semi-classical music. There are many beautiful old melodies, which most people don’t like to listen to and have even forgotten those. We, through our institute, are trying to popularise those among the people. We basically formed the institute to popularise classical music and also to help some needy people by donating them whatever we can from what we earn,” said Lobha Biswal, president of the institute.
“For the past three years we have been organising the event with a motive for promoting new talents and helping them get recognition from the music industry, ” she added.
On the concluding day, performances on semi-classical music, in which selective songs from Oriya and Hindi films were sung, enthralled everyone present.
Eminent classical singer and ex-principal of Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya (USM), Padma Keshari Pandit Damodar Hota, spiritual guru, AIR and TV artist Baba Pradyumna Kishore Dev and ex-secretary of the Orissa Sahitya Academy, Indu Bhusan Kar were among the distinguished guests, who attended the programme on the first day. Dhira Mallick, secretary of the Orissa Sangeet Natak Akademi and eminent theatre director was the special guest on the second and concluding day of the function.
