Usha Gupta, Raga Rang
February 28 & March 1
Roxy Theatre, Theatre Network
8 PM
*Tickets for this presentation are sold through the Theatre Network Box Office
This project is the culmination of Usha Gupta's life as an Indian musician. Since September 2021, Usha has been working with various Indian composers to gain a deeper knowledge of the classical and contemporary Indian music. With that research now complete, Usha wishes to share what she has learned with the local community. This realization has taken the form of a newly formed ensemble of Canadian and Indian artists, who will be premiering their music at a concert RAGRANG (translated to 'colours of the Raga').
Praveen D Rao - Composer
Varijashree Venugopal - Classical Vocalist
Dr. Deepak Paramashivan - Mozart Composition - Classical Vocalist
Pritam Ghosal - Composed Dawn to Dust Item
Shruti Kamath - Musician, Sitar
Gurumurthy - Percussionist, Tabla
John Calverley - Violinist
Usha Gupta - Artistic Director, Concept and Direction
The premiere will consist of 6 parts:
01. Temple Chants India is a land of temples. Indian Classical music is deeply connected to ritualistic practices. We will present an amalgamation of Chants and Music.
02. Evolution of Raga - Swara Mania The dynamic of each Raga in the Indian music system, is connected to either a season, time, emotion or philosophy.
03. Raga-Relay or Antakshari (The game of the ending letter) This is a representation of an ancient Indian musical game, which challenges the expertise of singers. One musician initiates a Raga, improvises and ends it in a note of his choice. The second musicians picks up from the last note, chooses a corresponding Raga, improvises and ends it in a note of his choice. This process continues from musician to musician.
04. Moorchana - Jumping Jack This is a technical wonder of the Indian Classical music world. As Indian music is predominantly a tonic based style, shifting tonics within a chosen scale and exploring the derived scales is a challenging task. Let us take ‘Raga Bhoopali’ (Major pentatonic scale) in C. The age old popular traditional composition ‘Javun tore charana kamala par vaar’ is performed. End of the composition the movement can pause at the second note of the scale that is D. Now we trace the scale starting from D, which is another scale called ‘Madhmad Sarang’ (Suspended Pentatonic). Another popular composition is performed, which ends on the second note, which is E. The exercise is repeated three more times, each time using the second degree of the scale to form the next scale.
05. Mozart through the Indian eye The evolution of Musical instruments are also strongly influenced by the available natural resources in particular areas. Many of the European instruments are string based. What if a piece composed for a Piano or Violin is played on a Sitar and Sarangi? How will a Western classical composition sound when sung with the Indian Sargam (Sol fa system)?
06. East and West Music is one of the greatest gifts to the modern world. The world, divided by geography, language, philosophy and culture is undoubtedly united by the Seven musical notes. Though each civilisation developed uniquely, through the ages a lot has been shared and spread. This is an effort to find the common dots and join them aesthetically to draw a pure universal concoction of joy.
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