Shree Music Festival 2016

February 16, 2016: Yesterday I came to Kolkata from Jaipur via morning flight.

In Jaipur, I was busy with the three-day Shree Music Festival which was held at the Vidyashram School’s auditorium named after none other than the legendary Maharana Pratap.

This was the second edition of the Shree Music Festival and it was dedicated to empowerment of women.

So for all three days we had women performers from all over the country and Shri Vishwamohan Bhatt, who is the Chairman of the Rajasthan Forum, also performed with female accompanists, Lakshmi Pillai and Rekha Pandit.

On all the three days there were performances by female artists Shinjini Kulkarni, Dona Ganguly, Sangeeta Datta, Amita Dalal, Hetal Mehta, Dr Sonal Mansingh, Priti Patel, Begum Parween Sultana, Madhu Bhatt Tailang, Lachi Prajapati and Manisha Gulyani.

The highlight of the three-day event was the performance presented by the Banasthali Vidyapeeth students.

The performance presented by them with the traditional Rajasthani instruments was simply mind blowing and mesmerized the audience.

The students came under the leadership of their Dean, Professor Ina Shastri. Every day of the event, after the performances, there was a dinner at the Marriott poolside.

On the last day of the Festival, which was on the Valentine’s Day, Rajasthan Forum felicitated Gulabo, one of the most famous folk dancers this country has ever produced. She became popular by performing the Rajasthani snake dance and came to be known as Gulabo Sapera.

Gulabo was recently awarded Padma Shri by the Government of India and we decided to honour her for this along with all the women classical performers.

Although the Festival ended at 12 o’clock the dinner went on till 2 am.

I still managed to catch the morning flight from Jaipur to Kolkata as I was committed to attend a golden jubilee wedding anniversary of my friend’s parents at the Hyatt Regency.

Today, and the next three days, I will be busy in the affairs of a family wedding.

ess bee