Ravi Chary Crossing
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Bengaluru is gearing up to host the third edition of the Mahindra Percussion Festival next month. To be held at the Prestige Centre of Performing Arts, this year’s festival in association with The Hindu, is a tribute to tabla maestro Zakir Hussain.
As with every edition of this festival, this year too will see some world-class names such as Trilok Gurtu, Ravi Chary and others performing over two days. According to Jay Shah, vice president – Cultural Outreach at Mahindra Group, the purpose of such a festival is to place percussionists in the limelight.
“At other performances, they are relegated as accompanists to the performing artiste. The idea of this festival is to give them a platform to communicate directly with the audiences, and not just via another performer,” says Jay.
Trilok Gurtu
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
“Every year we try to have a balanced approach of curation where we have established artistes as well as an interpolation of newer names. A lot of attention is given to balance experience as well as promise from the younger lot of performers.,” he shares.
Jay adds that another important facet of the festival is to include “as many different instruments and percussive styles as possible, keeping in mind the intention of the festival is to create an in-depth awareness of this tradition.”
Percussion as a genre is present in so many different shapes, forms and gharanas, he adds, mentioning Aruna Sairam’s Thrillana Project. “Aruna is essentially a vocalist, but she is going to be using her voice as a percussive instrument at this showcase; that is an unusual admission to the festival this year,” says Jay adding, “There will be more contemporary sounds from Ravi Chary as well as the SNAX duo.”
Aruna Sairam
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Audiences can expect performances from “established folk, younger contemporary talent and unusual combinations. Each of these groups will be using all kinds of percussive instruments that fulfill our aim of bringing different sounds to the program.”
Jay adds, “Curation is a year-long process as we are constantly evaluating and juggling which percussion instruments and talent would make sense for the goals we have in mind. It is quite easy to put together a list of popular performers — our idea is to ensure that some of the younger, undiscovered talents also get to the forefront. The element of discovery is important to all our festivals.”
On the first day, the festival will see performances by world-renown percussionist Trilok Gurtu and the Aruna Sairam’s Thrillana Project which will include artistes such as Giridhar Udupa, Sangeet Haldipur, BC Manjunath, Jyotsana Srikanth, Arun Kumar and Shalini Mohan. As the festival is a tribute to Zakir Hussain, Ravi Chary will present Crossing, an album that was launched by the maestro in 2022.
Ranjit Barot
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
The second day will spotlight the new wave of Indian percussion with BeatRoute, a musical production by composer Ranjit Barot and theatre director Roysten Abel. SNAX, the musical duo from Chennai, will share the stage with Ramkumar Kanakarajan and mridangist Sumesh Narayanan to bring a unique blend rock, metal and jazz.
The Mahindra Percussion Festival 2025, in association with The Hindu, will be held at the Prestige Centre of Performing Arts on March 1 and 2. Tickets starting at ₹750 available on BookMyShow
To a different beat
The following artistes will be performing at the Mahindra Percussion Festival 2025:
March 1: Trilok Gurtu, Aruna Sairam’s Thrillana Project and Ravi Chary
March 2: Ranjit Barot and Roysten Abel’s BeatRoute, SNAX
SNAX
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Published – February 21, 2025 05:59 pm IST
