68th Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav to be held between December 14 – 18

68th Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav is back with a gap of two years. This year it will be held at Sports Complex of Maharashtriya Mandal at Mukund Nagar, located opposite Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, from December 14-18, 2022.

Arya Sangeet Prasarak Mandal to pay unique tribute to artists who were part of the Mahotsav but recently passed away, with participation of their disciples and family members. Special participation of disciples and artists from tradition of Bharat Ratna Pandit Bhimsen Joshi to celebrate his birth centenary year

Pune, November 23: Shrinivas Joshi, Executive President, Arya Sangeet Prasarak Mandal, on Wednesday at a press conference, announced the list of participating artists for the 68th Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav.

Speaking about this year’s Mahotsav, Shrinivas Joshi said, “The birth centenary of Bharat Ratna Pandit Bhimsen Joshi could not be celebrated in the Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be celebrated this time during the Mahotsav.

The special feature of the Mahotsav is participation of artists from the Kirana Gharana, who reside in different parts of the country. Also, the Mandal will pay a unique tribute to the artists, who performed in the Mahotsav for a long time, but passed away recently, with performance by their disciples and family members.”

Due to COVID-19 the Mahotsav did not take place for the past two years, which disappointed the music lovers. Hence, while planning this year’s festival, we specially thought of providing different aspects of Indian Classical Music to the connoisseurs. Also, the Mandal has tried to scale up the joy of music connoisseurs with participation of established and promising artists from the country and abroad in the Mahotsav, asserted Shrinivas Joshi.

Arya Sangeet Prasarak Mandal trustees Shilpa Joshi, Shubhada Mulgund, Pandit Upendra Bhat, Prabhakar Deshpande and Abhay Kele of Prithvi Edifice were present on the occasion.

For the first three days – on December 14, 15, 16 – the timings of the Mahotsav are from 4 PM to 10 PM. On Saturday December 17, the Mahotsav will start from 3 PM and if permission is granted, will take place till 12 AM. The timings on the last day will be 12 noon to 10 PM.

List of performers in 68th Sawai Gandharv Mahotsav 2022

The list of performing artists in the 68th Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav is as follows:

Day 1 (14th December, 2022) : To mark the birth centenary year of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, the Mahotsav will start with a performance by Pandit Upendra Bhat, who is the senior disciple of Bhimsen Joshi and exponent of Kirana Gharana. Then vocalist Shashwati Mandal, exponent of Gwalior Gharana will present her performance. The void of Sangeet Martand Pandit Jasraj will be felt at the Mahotsav and considering it, his nephew and disciple vocalist Pandit Rattan Mohan Sharma will perform at the Mahotsav. The first day will conclude with the performance of Sarod maestro Padma Vibhushan Amjad Ali Khan.

Day 2 (15th December, 2022) : The second day will start with a performance by Delhi-based Kirana Gharana vocalist Avinash Kumar. Then Sarod player Alam Khan, son of Sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, will present his performance. Alam, who belongs to the Maihar-Seni Gharana is a noted Sarod player and is based in the United States of America. Then there will be a joint performance by late Pandit Rajan Mishra’s brother Pandit Sajan Mishra and his son Swaransh Mishra. The second day will conclude with violin performance by Padma Bhushan awardee and violin virtuoso Dr N Rajam, her daughter Sangeeta Shankar and her granddaughters Ragini and Nandini Shankar.

Day 3 (16th December 2022) : The third day will start with a performance by Kolkata-based Kirana Gharana vocalist Manali Bose. Then there will be a performance by noted Santoor player Rahul Sharma, son of Santoor maestro Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. Then vocalist Shrinivas Joshi, son of Bharat Ratna Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, will perform and the day will conclude with the performance of Padma Bhushan Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty.

Day 4 (17th December, 2022) : The fourth day will start with the performance of vocalist Yashasvi Sarpotdar, who is the disciple of vocalist Padma Talwalkar of Jaipur Atrauli Gharana. Then Indian classical vocalists of Dhrupad genre, Umakant Gundecha and Anant Gundecha, will co-perform. It will be followed by a performance by Bengaluru-based vocalist Bharathi Pratap of Agra Gharana. Then vocalist Viraj Joshi, grandson of Bharat Ratna Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and son and disciple of Shrinivas Joshi, will present his performance. The feature of the fourth day is performance by Indian Carnatic musician and vocalist Sid Sriram and the day will conclude with ‘Jugalbandi’ by vocalist Ustad Rashid Khan and Sitar Maestro Shahid Parvez. Known for ‘Khayal’ singing, Ustad Rashid Khan is well-known vocalist of Rampur-Sahaswan Gharana, while Shahid Parvez is a world famous Sitar player, belonging to the Imdadkhani Gharana.

Day 5 (18th December, 2022) : The last day of the Mahotsav will start with the performance of vocalist Anand Bhate, disciple of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. It will be followed by performance of well-known flautist Rajendra Prasanna from Benaras Gharana. Then there will be a performance by vocalist Rajendra Kandalgaonkar, who received guidance from Pandit Bhimsen Joshi for a long period. The music lovers will also experience Hindustani-Carnatic Jugalbandi by national-award winning vocalist Mahesh Kale and USA-based vocalist Sandeep Narayan. There will also be a performance by well-known Kathak exponent and actress Archana Joglekar, who is now settled in the USA.

The 68th Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav will conclude with the performance of Swaryogini Padma Vibhushan Dr Prabha Atre, who belongs to the Kirana Gharana.First-time performersAvinash Kumar, Alam Khan, Manali Bose, Yashasvi Sarpotdar, Sid Sriram, Rajendra Prasanna and Sandeep Narayan.