This festive concert in Bengaluru brings one of carnatic music’s most prolific voices, Sikkil Gurucharan, to the city

Sikkil also opens up about his recent tour of Japan representing the music of Rajiv Menon’s Sarvam 'Thaala Mayam' that released in 2018
This festive concert in Bengaluru brings one of carnatic music’s most prolific voices, Sikkil Gurucharan, to the city
In Frame: Sikkil Gurucharan
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Sikkil Gurucharan is a prominent musician and a youth ambassador for carnatic music. As a featured artiste during the Chennai music season and a recipient of multiple awards, he has excelled in traditional concert performance. Additionally, Sikkil has expanded the genre’s audience through innovative collaborations with internationally acclaimed musicians, all while preserving the essence of the art form. In town, this weekend for Nada Sambhrama by the Nadathur Foundation — a concert series dedicated to promoting and celebrating the rich tradition of Indian classical music — we catch up with the celebrated artiste to find out more about the upcoming performance.

Sikkil Gurucharan
Sikkil Gurucharan

What can we look forward to at Nada Sambhrama?

The festive spirit of Navaratri, the celebration of colours in the form of the three main goddesses — Lakshmi, Durga and Saraswati — comes vividly to life in this season. That is something that I’m trying to portray through music at this concert. In carnatic music, you get a lot of shades of colours in terms of ragas, talas, various compositions, various languages and various emotions — I’m hoping people can relate to all of these different festive spirits that I hope to add into the concert,” Sikkil begins.

Sikkil Gurucharan
Sikkil Gurucharan

Do you have a favourite raga for the season?

I don’t actually, but since you insist. The last two days I’ve been coming across this raga quite frequently. Bhairavi is a fairly common raga across the whole of India. In North India bhairavi refers to a different scale and in South India, there are many variations of this bhairavi, even in the name. One of the variations is sindhu bhairavi, which is also a famous raga throughout India. Using that raga we worked on a song from the North, as well as from the interiors of Tamil Nadu — trying to bring together these two songs to focus on the same shakti. That was interesting.

Sarvam Thaala Mayam
Sarvam Thaala Mayam

You were on a tour with a small crew from Rajiv Menon’s Sarvam Thaala Mayam, in Japan, six years after its release — tell us more?

This trip was organised by Japanese fans of the film and the amount of interest they showed in carnatic music was humbling to say the least. There are a group of Japanese rasikas who frequently come to India, especially to Chennai for the December music festival and then they visit other cities like for example Bengaluru for concerts and to see places. They are very well educated about South Indian culture and carnatic music is a huge attraction for them. The movie released in 2018 and immediately became a favourite within these circles. I never imagined that after five years, there will be a promoter of the film in Japan who would organise a tour in five cities in Japan — where the movie would play first in the theatre and once the movie was over, we would sit on the stage and encourage them to draw similarities between what they just saw on the screen and what they are seeing live now as a carnatic concert. I was amazed at the number of people who turned up as audience, who stayed for the entire concert for two hours and were even waiting in line to get our autographs!

Sikkil Gurucharan
Sikkil Gurucharan

What can a rasika or someone who is not too sure about carnatic music, expect at this concert?

Specifically for this performance, I think if you are a fan of melodic ragas and if you’re a fan of celebrating the feminine divine, you will probably like this concert. But in general, for someone who’s standing on the doorstep, having doubts whether to enter, I just have to love to say that in today’s age and time, carnatic music has evolved to speak to different audiences in its own way. The structure of carnatic music, as much as sometimes people think that it is rigid — is quite malleable. Carnatic music has always taken influences from various sources and it is constantly moulding and remoulding itself and offering the audience what the audience of that particular era wants. Right now, carnatic music is in a great place!

Entry free. October 5, 6 pm onwards. At JSS Auditorium, Jayanagar.

Email: romal@newindianexpress.com

X: @elromal

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