Author Archives: Fidel Dsouza

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Spirituality is best represented by those who have been silently walking its introspective path, heeding only an inner voice – and not text messages. Your mobile phones are expected to be switched off, instructed the announcer to the moonlit, open night sky and the packed seated audience beneath. A diverse crowd comprising foreign cultural delegates, international visitors, upscale local restaurateurs and common folk showed up for the performance, a crowd who perhaps on a regular weekend wouldn’t even consider attending a folk/classical music program. Let alone a ticketed one. But this was something else – Roysten Abel’s production of exotic and endangered traditions with The Manganiyar Seduction was about to commence. A massive grid of booths –…

Fidel Dsouza

“I see a world where the streets are full of blood Where cows eat meat Where prostitutes are Goddesses Where mothers fornicate with their sons Yes I see this world.” – Indian Dancer “I see the same world.” – Black metal musician Clearly, this was an unconventional start to what I thought would be just another fusion concert. Rukmini Chatterjee, however, does not believe in fusion. She presents a meeting of art, where each retains its original form. Her choreography contrasts cultures and artistic vocabulary around a central theme to create the final experience of universal beauty. Her production on these lines in the past include: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, European ballet, North/South Indian classical music and…

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60 years of diplomatic Indo-German ties deserved a massive project highlighting the cultural exchange as managed by the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan. For probably the first time ever, a European film orchestra – one of the last few surviving – would perform A.R. Rahman’s film scores in a multi-city tour. The German Film Orchestra Babelsberg was to perform the tour finale in Bangalore. The event received fairly lukewarm promotions relying on the Rahman tag to motivate people to flock to the free-of-cost event. All the roads to Palace grounds were jam-packed with cars ferrying the elite to the event, compounded by the weekend dozen weddings that were within earshot of the neatly enclosed venue. The multitude…

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We all have our favourite Zero song and mine was ‘Her’. I remember listening to the simple chord work and smooth vocal harmonies and falling in love with the sound back when I was in college and I remember thinking to myself, “Indian bands sound awesome!” Zero has been the benchmark for a band in my mind and to be able to see some of the original masterminds perform live was a treat I could not afford to pass up. Bangalore Habba probably hit its zenith over the weekend when it featured one of the country’s ace guitarists Warren Mendonsa’s instrumental project Blackstratblues. Warren, alongside childhood buddies Sidd Coutto on Drums and Johan Pais on…

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As part of Opus’ Christmas Festival, a string of acts leading up to the festive season made for a great live music show. Susheela Raman – the acclaimed British-Tamil vocalist was performing with her producer Sam Mills on guitar, Kutle Khan on folk vocals and Nathoo Lal Solanki on the Nagada (percussion), the latter being from the Rajasthan Roots collective. We landed up quite early (7:30 p.m.) for the show and the Christmas Carol Jazz collection that had started to play was a welcome change after having to sit through the soundcheck for what seemed like eternity. The rest of Bangalore smartly sashayed in well after 9:00 pm. One announcement and advertisement for the caricatures…

An auspicious month like this calls for some extraordinary classical music festivals and performances all over India. For us Bangaloreans, we had the city of joy brought down to us with the guys from Indian Blue. They’ve been touring Bangalore for the festive season and were playing their last show before heading back home. Led by Shiraz Ali Khan, grandson of the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan on Sarod, their music is a continuum of rich classical Indian melody crossing over with some groovy funk-blues for some contemporary sounding world fusion. The lineup included Dishari Chakraborty on Persian Santoor; Arindam Bhattacharya on Vocals; Ranjan De on Bangla Dhol, Tabla; Shovon Mukherjee on Bass guitar; Santonu…

Infusion: To incorporate a thought or process. Alliance Francaise was the place to be on Friday night if you felt like some smooth jazz. The lineup for the night was Frijo Francis on Piano, Dominic Yesudas on Bass and Victor Francis on the Drums. I had heard only the best reviews about the band and was looking forward to watching them live. Since I arrived a bit late, (unfashionably) I walked right into the jazz standard ‘Summertime’. It started off with a funk drum beat leading right into the song motif headed by Frijo. The first thing that struck me was the actual ‘sound’ they had – the perfect feel for swinging jazz with the…

      Saturday night in Bangalore. Overcast and a little moody. Brisk biting wind outside. No better place to be than Herbs and Spice for an evening of jazz with Amit Heri. Since it was a solo perfomance, it was interesting to see songs being built layer upon layer with his loop station. The setting was perfect. Amit’s light strains of whole tone scales and modal improvisations were placed and precise, between humble containment and other times spilling over the ambient table clatter. His set list contained smart jazz classics like ‘Black Orpheus’, ‘Canteloupe Island’ and ‘Spain’. I personally loved his rendition of ‘A Day In The Life of a Fool’. Melancholic and soulful, …

      Pink Floyd. The legends. The stories. The visions and the colors. The imagery and form. The words and The void. The mellow warmth and the choral highs. The dystopian landscape and the virtuosic inflection. Pink Floyd. Who among us has never felt or experienced the Floydian point of view especially down in the city of rock (or pubs), Bengaluru! In case you thought there was nothing more, Breathe – The Sound of Floyd, decided their gig in Bangalore last year was worth revisiting, and hence the Floyd Tribute concert at UB city on Saturday 26th February was proclaimed! Now, I personally have been listening to Floyd even before I knew to shave,…