Invoking shades of spring

It was a Saturday evening with a difference. Budhaditya Bhattacharyya, a young Indian classical vocalist, enthralled a group of selected audience members on the terrace of Birla Academy of Art and Culture on 29 March.

- TARUN GOSWAMI

The theme of the programme, 'Constant Companion: The Art of Making Tanpuras', brought a captivating blend of tradition and scholarship that charmed the audience, representing different age groups. Bhattacharyya is a doctoral scholar in ethnomusicology at the University of Durham and an alumnus of SOAS. As a senior disciple of Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, Bhattacharyya had already honed an exquisite command of khayal, dhrupad, dhamar, and thumri, further enriched by his ongoing study of rare ragas and talas under Ustad Mehfooz Khokhar in the UK. This fusion of rigorous academic pursuit and artistic mastery lent his performance both technical precision and intellectual gravitas.