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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Indian classical singing to get a boost for Independence

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988 days ago
20220613
Karishma Dhowtal, the granddaughter of classical singer Jameer Hosein, will be taking part in the preliminary round of the competition.

Karishma Dhowtal, the granddaughter of classical singer Jameer Hosein, will be taking part in the preliminary round of the competition.

SHASTRI BOODAN

Lo­cal In­di­an clas­si­cal singing is get­ting a much need­ed boost.

Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo, ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er, NeeLee­Ji En­ter­tain­ment Ltd, said his or­gan­i­sa­tion would be part­ner­ing with Hin­di Foun­da­tion of T&T to bring to the lovers of lo­cal clas­si­cal singing an op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in an In­de­pen­dence Clas­si­cal Singing Com­pe­ti­tion.

In­di­an clas­si­cal singing was brought to T&T by the In­den­tured labour­ers when they land­ed here 177 years ago. How­ev­er, the ear­ly form of au­then­tic In­di­an clas­si­cal mu­sic has evolved in­to In­do-Trinidad clas­si­cal mu­sic, which is some­times re­ferred to as taan singing, tent singing or clas­si­cal.

These songs are writ­ten in ei­ther Hin­di or Ur­du. There is no blend­ing of Eng­lish and Hin­di as is done in mod­ern chut­ney mu­sic. The art­form is en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent from the ver­sion of chut­ney mu­sic that orig­i­nat­ed in the 1970s and grew mas­sive­ly pop­u­lar in the decades fol­low­ing.

Lo­cal clas­si­cal mu­sic us­es tra­di­tion­al in­stru­ments such as the har­mo­ni­um, dho­lak and dhan­tal. The man­dolin was al­so a pop­u­lar in­stru­ment, how­ev­er, it is sel­dom used to­day. Elec­tron­ic in­stru­ments are nev­er used.

Indian classical singer Dubraj Persad will be one of the guest artistes at the competition.

Indian classical singer Dubraj Persad will be one of the guest artistes at the competition.

SHASTRI BOODAN

Based on the notes, dif­fer­ent styles of singing have evolved. These in­clude thum­ri, dhru­pad, ghaz­al, tilaana, ghaz­al, chaiti, malaar, kim­ta, bi­hag and lowni.

Clas­si­cal singing leg­ends in­clude Sam Boodram, Is­sac Yankaran, Jameer Ho­sein, Ab­dool Kush Raza­ck, Ashook Yankaran, Bal­li­ram Bala, Bu­dram Ho­lass, Dev Ban­sraj Ramkissoon, Han­iff Mo­hammed and Hen­ry Tooloom Din­di­al.

Man­ga­roo said the fi­nals would be held on Sun­day, Au­gust 28, 2022 at 4 pm at the Mul­ti­pur­pose Hall, at Cam­den Road, Cou­va, op­po­site the Cou­va Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal.

He said, “Clas­si­cal or Taan singing was brought to these parts by our fore­fa­thers in 1845. I am very proud to say that this art form is now be­ing ap­pre­ci­at­ed by young and up­com­ing singers.”

Kar­ish­ma Dhow­tal, 27, the grand­daugh­ter of the leg­endary Jameer Ho­sein, said she in­tends to con­tin­ue her grand­fa­ther’s lega­cy.

“I am ex­cit­ed as a young artiste that this art­form is see­ing a grand re­vival. I hope that more youth will get vo­cal train­ing and join us on this road,” she said.

Dhow­tal stud­ied In­di­an Clas­si­cal vo­cals at the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Cor­po­ra­tion. She start­ed at the age of sev­en and has per­formed lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

One of the spe­cial guest artistes would in­clude the high­ly ac­claimed Dubraj Per­sad, who start­ed singing 30-plus years ago. Per­sad said, “I have been com­pet­ing for sev­er­al decades, now is the time to en­cour­age and sup­port young artists. Clas­si­cal is in­dige­nous to T&T and I am hap­py to pre­serve this art­form.”

Classical singer Veejai Ramkissoon, one of the contestants for the preliminary rounds.

Classical singer Veejai Ramkissoon, one of the contestants for the preliminary rounds.

SHASTRI BOODAN

Con­tes­tants will be vy­ing for a grand prize of $25,000 spon­sored by the Hin­di Foun­da­tion of Trinidad & To­ba­go Inc and the Pan­dit Ma­hase Ma­haraj chal­lenge tro­phy.

The sum of $10,000 will be award­ed to the Peo­ple’s Choice. The best drum­mer will re­ceive $5,000 plus the Kalool Ram­samooj tro­phy. The best Dhan­talist will re­ceive $3,000.

The au­di­tion/pre­lim­i­nary will be held on Sun­day, June 19 at Whiskey Busi­ness, Tul­sa Branch Trace in Pe­nal.

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