Concert marks third year of South Asian Symphony

Musicians from four countries present soulful music at an online gig

A digital concert marked the third anniversary of The South Asian Symphony Foundation on Tuesday.

The event, in collaboration with Bangalore International Centre, began with a video message from founder Nirupama Rao.

“Our foundation was established with the mission of using music as a means to bring together the people of South Asia. We felt it was necessary because South Asia is the least integrated region in the world and we have not been able to transcend borders because of political differences,” she said.

The foundation built a South Asian Symphony Orchestra (SASO) as part of this endeavour. “We had two concerts, one in Mumbai and Bengaluru in 2019, just before the pandemic. During the pandemic we have not been able to meet in person, but we started a journal called ‘Accord’,” Rao said.

Tuesday’s concert featured musicians from India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

The first set was by 16-year-old Amanullah Noori on the violin. He performed ‘Paimana Bede’, a Pushto folk song from Afghanistan, with Murtaza Muhammadi on the rubab.

Priyanka Venkatesh on the violin played her own arrangement of ‘Sonata no 4, I Moderato’ by Walter Kaufmann, and was accompanied by Vijay Venkatesh on the piano. It was a warm mix of Western music and Indian ragas.

Nivanthi Karunaratne wore traditional attire and performed on the horn a ‘70s hit from Sri Lanka, ‘Surangani: A Sinhalese Baila’ by A L Manoharan.

Dilshad Billimoria Posnock performed ‘Syrinx, L 129’ by Claude Debussy, on the flute.

‘Melodies from Everest’ composed by Gopal Yonjan and arranged by Rajkumar Shrestha, was performed by Sudhakar Wasti on the violin.

Rohan Ramanan played on the English horn selections from the musical film ‘Sardari Begum’ as a tribute to the late composer Vanraj Bhatia.

Following this was a dramatic performance of ‘Adiga Adiga’ from the Telugu film ‘Ninnu Kori,’ with Farhad Billimoria on the violin. A unique piece was by flautist Meera Gudipati, who performed her own composition ‘Javari ratios’.

Pianist Vijay Venkatesh played ‘Ballade Op 118 No 3’ by Brahms, which he described as “a powerful work with a passionate and epic narrative”.

Anusha Madapura on the violin rendered A R Rahman’s ‘Maa Tujhe Salaam’.

The concert ended with ‘A medley with Mozart: Chinna Chinna Aasai’ by Soundarie David Rodrigo on the piano.

It brought together two worlds — Indian film music and Western classical music and served as a fitting finale to the concert.