This morning, I was picked up by one of Anthony’s friends, a man named Dhinakar. For several hours, Dhinakar and I rode around on his motorcycle throughout Chennai, which was a pretty wild experience. Cheating death always is exhilarating – and sorry mom, we did not wear helmets! We ate lunch at his house, which was nice to get a home-cooked meal, albeit an extremely spicy one.
Later that evening, I went to the Music Academy. The place was packed, and my seat actually was in the last row of the balcony! (I still had a relatively good view though). As I have written in an earlier post, there are ongoing performances at the Music Academy and various other venues throughout Chennai, so there is no shortage of music to be heard. I do have a schedule of all of the performances at the Music Academy, so I know what I will be seeing when I go there.
Tonight, I attended another Carnatic (South Indian) music performance, yet there was a little twist. Like many traditional performances, the instruments included a mridangam (hand drum), ghatam (clay drum), kanjira (South Indian tambourine), and violin; yet what drew my attention was that there also were two mandolins. (And, of course, for me, the strong percussion section was really fantastic). I have come to learn that mandolins, like violins, are not uncommon in Carnatic music. What was so interesting was that the musicians were making an “Indian” sound out of the mandolin – if I did not have program, I would have never guessed they were playing mandolins.
I always have enjoyed fusion music; and particularly like the idea of a “Western” instrument used in an “Eastern” devotional piece. Once again, the universality of music transcends all cultural and religious boundaries.
The mandolin players are in white and black kurtas.
No comments:
Post a Comment