Programs in Kolkata

To close out my much too brief stay in Kolkata I played programs three days in a row, from Wednesday, January 19th through Friday, the 21st. The Wednesday and Friday programs were in small galleries in South Kolkata. Wednesday was at Studio 21, a gallery that featured some pretty avant-garde kind of stuff, some with collage effects, some with cartoon-like features. This studio had never held a music program before, and we sat in a very small room that held maybe 25 people. Very live sound from the stone walls. I shared this program with Portland-based sitarist Josh Feinberg. The Friday program was at the Weavers Studio Centre for the Arts, which is an offshoot of a project that promotes village-based textile arts. They have a commercial showroom up the street and this gallery space for exhibitions. Weavers has had many music programs and were quite well set up in a very long, narrow room. But things were very fixed in how they were done. When it seemed that everyone would want to sit in the chairs that were furthest back in the room, rather than on the very uncomfortable stools further up we suggested that the stools be moved, and the staff reacted with rigid horror at the thought.

The Studio 21 gig was not one of my better ones – I was having trouble with my nails and it was quite humid in the small room, so of course that was the show that Tejendra Mazumdar, one of the top sarode players in India today, come to see. Oh well… At Weavers Studio I was fortunate to have Bubai (Debopriyo Sarkar), a particularly accomplished and sensitive accompanist, available to accompany me on tabla.

Both of these spaces, particularly Weavers, brought to mind the problem with making a transition to a new model of sustainability for (Indian) classical music in Kolkata. These venues do not have any mechanism to be able to pay artists, and are apparently not interested in creating one. Perhaps because so many music events in Kolkata are unticketed and admit with an invitation card, especially programs giving by the various music circles, the idea that a smart, upscale gallery like Weavers might be able to charge a modest admission fee that could go to the artists is anathema. This is not the case in Mumbai and other places. Unless and until some different paradigm can be devised to give some return to the younger or less renowned artists the structure that has supported the superb classical music scene in Kolkata will continue to crumble.

The gallery programs are the type that I might find myself doing, with minor local variation, almost anywhere in the world these days, from Berlin to Bali. Thursday evening’s program was one those uniquely Indian performance experiences. It took place in Howrah, the city just across the big Hoogly River from Kolkata. Being in Howrah is like suddenly going back 75 years in time, or maybe 75 miles in distance from the relatively modern city reality of Kolkata. Many main roads are narrow lanes with twists and turns; life is all out in the street. It’s something like a giant village. The program was in a meeting hall – a large concrete room, bare floor, with a wooden stage raised about 2 feet at one end. The performance area is just a white sheet put down on the wood. By the end of our one and a half-hour program my left ankle was killing me from being on the wood with no padding. I guess I’m spoiled. LOUD sound system. Many mosquitoes. But a very very warm and appreciative audience – people who know the music and are there to listen. 

The program was set up by a classical vocalist, Biswarup Paul, who lives in Howrah and is the secretary of the Hindustani Classical Music Circle there. We shared the program, which was a new and unique experience. We chose three ragas based the Kafi scale (Western Dorian mode) S R g m P D n S: Kafi, Jog and Bagheshri. In the Kafi section I played an alap, then he sang an alap, then I played a short gat/composition with tabla and he sang a vocal composition. In the Jog we did alap and jor together in dhrupad style and then both did compositions. That was as far as we had “rehearsed,” so the Bageshri we pretty much winged it based on a medium tempo vocal composition. I should explain a little that sharing the program, playing together meant that I was mostly expected to follow along with what he did and to shadow what he sang, but this was MOL what I anticipated working with an older, pretty traditional vocalist. Still, it was definitely an experiment and produced interesting moments for both of us and for the audience. I was quite overwhelmed at the end of the program when I was given a very large commemorative plaque and certificate, with the gesture of course, but also with the concept of what I was going to DO with these items which together would have taken up about 2/3 of my suitcase. I have left them on display at the Bondel Road house for now, and maybe the next time I come I’ll get them packed up ands sent home.