Fantastic fiddlers

Last evening I attended a violin concert for peace at the Birla Sabhaghar. I have not seen such a wonderful musical evening in Kolkata for a long time.

For more than two hours the full-house audience were captivated by a scintillating performance from violinists Mark O’Connor (USA), Loyko (Russia), Kheir Eddine M’Kachiche (Algeria), Benedicte Maurseth (Norway), Catharina Chen (Norway), Laxminarayan `Ambi’ Subramaniam (India) and his father Dr L Subramaniam who conceptualised the whole show.

Let me mention that Mark O’Connor (picture), American bluegrass, country and a classical violinist fiddler, is a two time Grammy Award winner and was nominated eight times for the award. The violinists got a rousing ovation from the audience at the end of the show.

The whole show was out-of-the-world and I was particularly amazed by the Russian violinists’ virtuosity at producing sounds of bird fights.

I attended the show as a Guest of Honour with Governor M K Narayanan on an invitation from Seagram’s – the main sponsor. I hosted a dinner for the violinists and Dr Subramaniam and his well-known wife Kavita Krishnamurty (picture) who is an established playback singer.

They were kind enough to extend to me an invitation to attend their show in Delhi on the evening of 10th of January. How I wish I had more time for myself to make it to such events.

ess bee