Chhand Lahari

A multilingual musical presentation
by two women conductors
Sharmila Neogi and members of Madhugunjan
and
Hema Desai and group

An NCPA Presentation

India is a unique region in the world, being home to 23 official languages, including English, and several hundred regional languages and dialects. The corpus of literary and poetic works available in these languages is astounding. Led by two women conductors, this multilingual musical presentation is based on works of celebrated poets and composers. Two different groups of singers will present songs, interspersing the performance with relevant commentary.

Madhugunjan is an ensemble of non-Bengali singers from diverse linguistic backgrounds, coming together to celebrate works of the bard of Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). Having trained in Rabindra Sangeet, Sharmila Neogi has a career spanning three decades. Driven by her mission to make Tagore’s poetry accessible to non-Bengali speakers, she will conduct a group of 16 singers and four musicians who will present some of his compositions that have either influenced Hindi film music and regional music or are inspired by traditional international tunes.

The second group of 13 singers and four musicians will be led by Hema Desai, a veteran singer whose main area of work is in Gujarati and Hindi. Besides presenting live events with her husband and noted artiste, Ashit Desai, she has also sung in Gujarati films. The group will present songs based on poetic works in Gujarati, Hindi and Marathi, composed by eminent poets/musicians, Zaverchand Meghani, Narendra Sharma, Shanta Shelke, Avinash Vyas, Bharat Acharya and Ravi Shankar.

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