CHICAGO: Padma Shri Shubha Mudgal was at her best while presenting a live concert to a very appreciative classical Indian music lovers at Reva and David Logan Center of the Arts, University of Chicago (UC), as part of the Eye on India Festival (EIF) 2013.
Introduced by EIF President Anuradha Behari as one of the foremost Hindustani classical vocalists, Mudgal sought to help the cause of communal harmony. She was accompanied by Aneesh Pradhan on the tabla and Sudhir Nayak on the harmonium. Her concert officially marked the closing, at the UC Smart Museum of Art, of the exhibition on “The Sahmat Collective: Art and Activism in India since 1989,” which was inaugurated on Feb 13, 2013.
Mudgal began with a long khayal in the afternoon rag Multani and continued with two thumris of which the first was in rag Khamaaj. She concluded with her own rendering of a poem by Kabir, the ever popular medieval saint of Banaras, who fostered communal harmony through his teachings and exemplary life.
Patent attorney Shiv Naimpally had flown all the way from Austin, Texas, in the morning just to hear Mudgal, and was returning home the same evening.
The Sahmat exhibition was devoted to the efforts of intellectuals, activists, and artists of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds to counter the growth of communal forces and resulting attempts to rationalize and even legitimize violence.
Mudgal has been awarded the 1996 National Film Award for Best Non-Feature Film Music Direction for the movie Amrit Beej (“Seed of Immortality”), the 1998 Gold Plaque Award for Special Achievement in Music at the 34th Chicago International Film Festival for her music in the film Dance of the Wind (1997) and the Padma Shri in 2000. Mudgal, a disciple of Pandit Ramashreya Jha, received training in thumri from Naina Devi. In the 1990s, she started experimenting with other forms of music, including pop and fusion
The concert was jointly presented by Eye on India, the Smart Museum of Art and Natya Dance Theatre, with additional support provided by the University of Chicago’s Committee on Southern Asian Studies and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.
Asian Media USA
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