Sur Sangam - 4th October 2009, Sydney, Australia

Debapriya and Samanwaya engaged the audience with their blissful presentation of Raag Marwa accompanied on the tabla by Sydney’s very own tabla player Nikhil Harishchandrakar. The programme while sparsely attended made for a cosy evening at the Canada Bay Civic Hall in Drummoyne on the 4th October 2009. Organised by a budding organization Syd-Kol Inc and the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the programs dated surroundings lent a helping hand as the vocals of the Debapriya and the Sitar sounds of Samanwaya wafted above the high vaults of this auditorium. Raag Marwa a difficult raag to treat at times was given the required touches on vocals by Debapriya as Samanwaya on the Sitar sometimes accompanied and sometimes played a complimenting idea to the vocal rendition. The rendition was presented in an instrumental format with a raga exploration in the beginning followed by a wonderful vocal nom-tom. The druth bandhish set to a twelve beat cycle brought out the mood of the raga accompanied by the accompaniment of Nikhil Harishchandrakar on a tabla that had a rather wide faced bhaayan!! the right component of the tabla. They followed this piece with Jhanana Mori Bhaje in Teen Taal which was riveting layakari.

These compositions were followed by a soulful raag Durga set to a Jhap Thaal in praise of the Goddess Durga after which Debapriya launched into some rare styles of singing classical music such as Tappa, Kajri and a Chaithi competently accompanied by the other instrumentalists. The flavor of their music shall remain with us until the next time.