By james art The 11th edition of the Melharmony Festival in Madison, USA on the weekend of October 19-20 highlighted the works of two pioneering composers – India’s Oottukkaadu Venkata Kavi (1700-1765), also known as OVK or Venkata Kavi, and his no less illustrious western contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 -1750). This two-day festival was organized by Melharmony Foundation and curated by its Executive Director Vanitha Suresh.
More than 100 performers and hundreds of Indian and Western classical music connoisseurs were immersed in a buffet of 20 individual mini-concerts, 5 ensemble performances, a musical play with live Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam dance, a spectacular Melharmony concert by Chitraveena N Ravikiran with legends VV Subrahmanyam (VVS), Trichy Shankaran, versatile chamber players Apollo, Patri Sathishkumar and others, culminating in a Carnatic violin duo led by VVS and Sankaran. For me, as a performer and participant, Melharmony Festival 2024 was a delight to the ears, nourishing and sumptuous food to the heart and soul, and an unrelenting inspiration.
Melharmony in world music
The concept of Melharmony was discovered and articulated by Ravikiran in the mid-2000s during his collaboration with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and subsequently developed from a Western perspective by Robert Morris of the Eastman School of Music, New York, USA. Melharmony explores chords and counterpoints based on melodic progressions in highly developed systems such as Indian classical music. This approach contrasts sharply with the traditional Western approach centered on harmonic progression. The result is a powerful fusion of the Indian ragi framework based on successive notes with Western-style harmony anchored on multiple notes played simultaneously. Melharmony’s aesthetic appeal is supported by a strong theoretical foundation and has captivated multicultural audiences of nearly 50,000 at major events.
Two composers, two worlds
The themes of each Melharmony festival over the past few years have centered around the presentation of works by classical Indian-Western composer duos, for example Tygaraja-Mozart, Swati Tirunal-Mendelsohn, Dikshitar-Beethoven and Shyama Shastri-Schubert. Both of this year’s heroes, HVAC and Bach, lived for 65 years and immeasurably expanded the boundaries of their respective systems with indelible and lasting impacts. While Bach is part of the Western musical trinity along with Mozart and Beethoven, the works of Venkata Kavi predate the Carnatic trinity (Tyagaraja, Diskshitar, Shyama Shastri). OVK’s compositions have a distinctive unique flavor with musical beauty and rhythmic variety combined with deep poetic expression and wordplay. For example, OVK’s compositions almost always include segments with multiple speeds, pulse changes, and scattered rhythmic, solfa, and lyrical patterns rarely used by subsequent composers. His works explore an unparalleled variety of musical, lyrical and rhythmic landscapes, ranging from colloquial lyrics with folk melodies to classical Tamil/Sanskrit poetry seamlessly woven with intricate rhythms and melodic movements that enthrall and captivate. A significant part of his work has come to light only in the last 80 years, stunning artists, listeners and scholars alike.
Diaspora showcase and nurturing
The first day included about 20 individual 30-minute vocal and instrumental (violin, clarionet and chitravina) mini-concerts of Venkata Kavi compositions embellished with melodic/rhythmic improvisations (eg raga aalapana, neraval and kalpanaswarams). Performers included prodigies of Indian origin and students from about 15 states in the US (eg Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Texas, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Ohio, Ind., Missouri) . A handful of professional artistes also graced the occasion to inspire, interact and perform alongside students: Patri Satishkumar (mridangam), Krithika Natarajan (vocals), Rajeev Mukundan (violin), Sriram Iyer (mridangam, kanjira), Bhargavi Balasubramanian (vocals) who is also creator of the Venkatakavi app for easy access to OVK compositions, and Sowmya Acharya (vocals), director of Acharyanet – an online Carnatic music learning portal featuring more than 800 learning modules. Each lead vocalist/instrumentalist was backed by melodic (violin) and rhythmic (mridangam, kanjira) accompaniment. The audience was engaged and enthused from 9am to 8pm, testifying to high quality talent, preparation and skill levels, despite little prior synchronized practice with co-artists. The concerts featuring emerging students and professionals were particularly inspiring and exciting.
Dance, musical, big concerts, cross-cultural inclusion, innovation
The second day’s brunch opened with a class of dance renditions of OVK compositions by students from Meenakshi Ganesan’s Kalaanjali Dance Company. This was followed by a highly entertaining and educational multi-act musical stage play on the Life of Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi created by Prof. Ranganathan’s Triveni Arts of Chicago, interwoven with live Carnatic singing by Vanitha Suresh’s Arohana Arts Academy and live Bharatanatyam by Kripa Bhaskaran of Natyarpana.
The Grand Melharmony concert in the afternoon began with classical renditions of the Bach Double Concerto and Brandenburg Movement 3 by the Apollo Chamber Players and Ravikiran’s intricate rendition of OVK’s masterpiece Venugaanaramanaa in raga Todi. The ensuing collaborative performances of Melharmony pieces by Apollo and Ravikiran were soulful, vivid and soaring. A full gulp of universe in raga Umaabharanam began with exquisite ‘harmonious sangats’ and moved into OVK’s composition depicting the infant Krishna revealing the universe to this mother Yashoda. The commander in raga Goula musically ignited the martial sentiments and was followed by OVK’s rendition of Senapate, which invokes Lord Kartikeya as the commander-in-chief of the Devas. The bringing together of two rich musical cultures through Melharmony highlighted the synergy between the shared values of global harmony and highlighted the inclusive transcendental values of Indian music which is inextricably supported and nurtured by the traditions of Sanatana Dharma. The two-day festival concluded with the performance of OVK’s timeless Alaipaayuthey kanna in raga Kaanadaa at the Grand Finale Concert by VVS and Sankaran, who were also honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards for their 160-year cumulative contribution to Indian classical music and world culture. The Mayor of Middleton, Wisconsin has declared October 22, 2024 as Chitravina Ravikiran Day in recognition of his outstanding contribution to world harmony through music.
Ganpati Ramanath is the John Todd Horton Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA (He is a passionate lifelong student, performer and connoisseur of Indian classical music with a deep interest in exposing children of Indian origin to Indian culture , philosophy, music , chants and religious hymns and spoken Sanskrit.