The Indo-French Reflection Group organised on the 31st January 2016 in Buc (France) a Conference-cum-Demonstration on the theme of “Notion of Time in Indian Classical Music” in the presence of the Chargé d’Affaires, Embassy of India, Mr. Manish Prabhat.
The Association has been dealing with this theme in History, Art, Literature, Science, Finance, etc. The event on music was well-attended and appreciated by the multi-national audience.
The afternoon started off with Lalitha Badrinath, President of the Association, providing some explanations for a better understanding of Indian classical music:
- How, in Indian cosmology, everything in the Universe is determined by coordinated and interdependent cycles;
- How each age corresponds to activities, desires, passion, doubts, hopes, sorrows;
- How we discover a mirror image in daily life: morning joyfulness, noon warmth, twilight melancholy, silence & peace of night;
- Scales created belonging to a particular feeling, state of mind, raga suited for the time of the day;
- The modes: morning mode for ardour & fragility of youth, noon mode for strength & passion, evening mode for wisdom & tenderness, night mode for peace & regret
- How ragas are sounds embellished by notes and phonemes pleasing human spirit
- How the concept of a raga is more than a simple structure of melody or modal scale, also a living entity whose emotional climate colours the mind of the listener;
- How each raga has a name and is defined by an ascending and a descending scale;
- The seasonal modes: springtime, autumn, rainy season.
The Carnatic programme began chronologically in the pre-Trinity period.The demonstration included examples from Divyaprabhandam, Tiruppavai, Ugabhoga Vachana, Tevaram, Tirupugazah.
The programme continued with the demonstration of the Notion of Time through Talas and their particularities in the kritis from the composers of the Trinity.
The Hindustani programme was based on demonstrations with different rags according to the time of the day and seasons & festivals.
The examples chosen were the rags Bhairav, Madhuvanti, Bagheshri, Sivaranjini. For the seasons, the rags chosen were MisraPahadi, Megh, Miyankimalhar. The festival depicted was Lohri.
The Carnatic team included Bhavana Pradyumna, Jeayaram Subramanian and Hudson Mariyanayagam (mridangam).
The Hindustani group comprised of: Madhubanti Sarkar, Aparna Sreedhar, VedavatiParnajape, Bittu Banger, Matthias Labbe (table) and Christophe Lartillot (flute).
The event ended with a Jugalbhandi (Vathapi Ganapathim / Lagi Lagan) sung by Aparna and Jeayaram accompanied by Hudson, Matthias and Christophe.
In October, the Indo-French Reflection Group will be presenting a programme based on “A Musical Journey through India” in the scope of “Namasthe France 2016” organised by the Embassy of India.