The Saptak Annual Festival of Music is an annual thirteen-day
Indian classical music
Indian classical music is the art music, classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It is generally described using terms like ''Shastriya Sangeet'' and ''Marg Sangeet''. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as ...
festival held in
Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad ( ), also spelled Amdavad (), is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. It is organised by
Saptak School of Music and takes place January first to the thirteenth every year, and is attended by hundreds of people.
History
The festival started in 1980 by
Nandan Mehta and his wife Manju Mehta, Rupande Shah, Bharti Parikh and D.D. Trivedi, with the inauguration by Pandit
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar (; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitar, sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known expert of Hin ...
and Pandit
Kishan Maharaj
Pandit Kishan Maharaj (3 September 1923 – 4 May 2008) was an Indian tabla player who belonged to the Benares gharana of Hindustani classical music.
Early life and background
Maharaj was born to a Brahmin family of hereditary musicians in Kab ...
.
The one-day event in 1980 expanded to the performance of more than 130 musicians in 15 sessions spread across 13 days by 2010.
The festival features both emerging talents and established performers. Besides pure classical music, it also includes performances of
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...
,
classical dance forms, and semi-classical forms such as
thumri
Thumri () is a vocal genre or style of Indian music. The term "thumri" is derived from the Hindi verb ''thumuknaa'', which means "to walk with a dancing gait in such a way that the ankle-bells tinkle." The form is, thus, connected with dance, dram ...
.
Gallery
The gallery dedicated to the life of Nandan Mehta and the history of festival was opened in Ahmedabad in 2012.
See also
*
List of Indian classical music festivals
The following is an incomplete list of Indian classical music festivals, which encapsulates music festivals focused on Indian classical music. The origins of Indian classical music can be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures in t ...
References
Music festivals established in 1980
Culture of Ahmedabad
Hindustani classical music festivals
Carnatic classical music festivals
Events in Ahmedabad
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