Rourkela: Members of ‘Geetimalya’, an organisation dedicated to music in this town, especially ‘Rabindra Sangeet’, have decided to celebrate the 163rd birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore innovatively this year. Tagore’s birthday is on May 7, but the programme will be held May 12. To celebrate the occasion, members of ‘Geetimalya’ will sing 20 famous Rabindra Sangeet songs at the same time spread over the country. “This is indeed a very unique event. Earlier, we were participating in functions every four years at Kolkata.
However, this time the birthday of ‘Gurudev’ will be celebrated in 11 states. In each place, there will be 100 singers. They will render 20 of the most famous songs of Tagore at the same time,” said Mana Chakraborty of ‘Geetimalya’. Susmita Naskar will be coordinating the Odisha part of the event. She informed me that 103 singers from Odisha would take part in the programme. “The programme will be spread over 11 states including Odisha. Among the other states and Union Territories participating in the function are Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana. A total of 1,100 artists will sing 20 selected songs of Gurudev including ‘Ekla chalo re’, sharp at 10.30 AM,” Naskar informed. Koyena Dastidar, another coordinator of the programme said, “We will sing on track mode and there will be no accompanying musicians. We will adhere to the timing so that all the 1,100 artists will sing at one go and finish the songs in around one hour and 30 minutes.”
In this city there will be 83 artists who are going to participate in the mass singing. “Another 20 are coming from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. They are undergoing training now,” informed Naskar. The mediapersons were given a glimpse of the practice sessions Saturday evening at the Rourkela Club. “Even though the majority of the singers are Bengalis, there are several Odias who are also learning Rabindra Sangeet,” stated Naskar. The practice sessions are being held at different venues here like Civil Township, Basanti Colony, Koel Nagar and other areas. “The strategy is to practice five songs at a time. Once we master those then we go to the next five,” Naskar said. “The final rehearsals will be held May 11 once the other singers arrive from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. We will also sync the songs on track mode so that there will be no glitches technically or otherwise,” added Koyena.
