Mahindra Percussion Festival returns to Bengaluru for third edition

The Mahindra Percussion Festival is back in the city and will be held on March 1 and 2

Bengaluru is gearing up to host the third edition of the Mahindra Percussion Festival next month. To be held at the Prestige Centre of Performing Arts, this year’s festival in association with The Hindu, is a tribute to tabla maestro Zakir Hussain.

As with every edition of this festival, this year too will see some world-class names such as Trilok Gurtu, Ravi Chary and others performing over two days. According to Jay Shah, vice president - Cultural Outreach at Mahindra Group, the purpose of such a festival is to place percussionists in the limelight.

“At other performances, they are relegated as accompanists to the performing artiste. The idea of this festival is to give them a platform to communicate directly with the audiences, and not just via another performer,” says Jay.

“Every year we try to have a balanced approach of curation where we have established artistes as well as an interpolation of newer names. A lot of attention is given to balance experience as well as promise from the younger lot of performers.,” he shares.

Jay adds that another important facet of the festival is to include “as many different instruments and percussive styles as possible, keeping in mind the intention of the festival is to create an in-depth awareness of this tradition.”

Percussion as a genre is present in so many different shapes, forms and gharanas, he adds, mentioning Aruna Sairam’s Thrillana Project. “Aruna is essentially a vocalist, but she is going to be using her voice as a percussive instrument at this showcase; that is an unusual admission to the festival this year,” says Jay adding, “There will be more contemporary sounds from Ravi Chary as well as the SNAX duo.”

Audiences can expect performances from “established folk, younger contemporary talent and unusual combinations. Each of these groups will be using all kinds of percussive instruments that fulfill our aim of bringing different sounds to the program.”