Siddha Foundation presents the Monsoon Music Festival from September 9 – 13 at Gorky Sadan. Mr. Subrata Bakshi, Hon’ble Member Of Parliament was present to inaugurate the event along with all other participating artists. H.E. Mrs. Irina Bashkirova, Hon’ble Consul General of Russia and Mr. Damiano Francovigh, Hon’ble Consul General of Italy were also present to grace the occasion.
With 5 international artists and 6 national artists coming together on the same stage, performing in six concerts over a period of three day that Monsoon Music Festival promises to be a treat to the music lover of the city.
“For the first time in Calcutta, the Monsoon Music Festival brings together both Indian and Western classical concerts on the same stage. Each evening of the weekend (Friday-Sunday) will have two concerts by our featured artists from Europe, America and Australia – a western classical performance followed by an Indian classical performance. Master classes, workshops and lectures are scheduled during the day for all the 5 days of the festival. There will be a student recital on the last evening (Tuesday),” said Mr. Sanjay Jain, Managing Director, Siddha Group.
The international artists are guitar and cello duo Rupert Boyd (Australia) & Laura Metcalf (USA), classical guitar duo Raphael Bereau (France) and Tizoc Romero (France) and at the solo classical guitar will be Brendan Evans.
The Indian artistes are Kunal Saha and Arindam Chakravarty at santoor and tabla, Sudip Chattopadhyay and Subrata Gupta at the flute and tabla, Abhisek Mallick and Biplab Bhattacharyya at the sitar and tabla.
The Monsoon Music festival is being organised by the Calcutta Classical Guitar Society and the Indian Guitar Federation. Keeping with their aim to develop classical guitar music in India, IGF & CCGS have added a component that focusses on classical guitar education to benefit the city’s young guitarists. Classical guitar students can sign up to receive master classes with the visiting musicians. More serious guitar students can choose to be part of an intensive 5-day workshop that will include working on one piece in detail, access to public music workshops, structured lessons on classical guitar history, technique and improvisation and a daily classical guitar ensemble class. Gorky Sadan and Alliance Francaise also extended their support as Venue partner & Cultural partner respectively.
