Saptak Annual Festival of Music

What it is

For thirteen days each January, Ahmedabad becomes a home for Indian classical music. The Saptak Annual Festival of Music is organised by the Saptak School of Music and has been held every year since 1980. Hundreds of people attend. The programme is spread over fifteen sessions, and it is broad: no single style or generation of musicians owns it. Younger performers appear beside famous ones, and the festival has grown from a single day into a long winter gathering for listeners in the city.

Origins and history

The festival was first held in 1980 as a one-day event. Nandan Mehta and his wife Manju Mehta started it with Rupande Shah, Bharti Parikh and D.D. Trivedi, and Hetal Mehta appears among the founders as well. Pandit Ravi Shankar and Pandit Kishan Maharaj played at the inauguration. What began as a single day grew over the following decades. By 2010 the programme had reached more than 130 musicians playing in fifteen sessions across the thirteen days. A gallery in Ahmedabad, opened in 2012, is given over to Nandan Mehta's life and to the story of the festival.

Music and dance

The heart of the festival is Indian classical music in its Hindustani and Carnatic streams. Alongside that core, audiences hear ghazals, folk music and semi-classical pieces such as thumri, and they watch classical dance. The thirteen days are divided into sessions rather than a single continuous programme. Over the years the number of performers has climbed, from a one-day beginning in 1980 to more than 130 musicians by 2010. Because the bill brings several forms together, an evening can move between strict classical work and lighter, song-based strands.

How Saptak Annual Festival of Music is kept

The festival runs for thirteen days, from 1 to 13 January. Each day is divided into sessions, and each session presents live music, with some slots given to dance. Organisers at the Saptak School of Music invite a mix of established performers and younger musicians. Styles on stage range from Hindustani and Carnatic classical music to ghazals, folk songs and semi-classical forms like thumri. Audiences number in the hundreds. The scale has grown since 1980: what began as one day of music became a run of fifteen sessions with over 130 musicians by 2010.

When and where

The festival takes place every year from 1 to 13 January. Those dates have been fixed since it began in 1980, and each year's programme occupies the same thirteen days at the start of January.

It is held in Ahmedabad, India. The Saptak School of Music, which organises the festival, is based there. Ahmedabad is also the city where the founders began the event in 1980 and where a gallery about Nandan Mehta and the history of the festival opened in 2012.

What Saptak Annual Festival of Music means

The festival keeps Indian classical music in public view in Ahmedabad for nearly a fortnight each year. For the musicians who take part, it is a setting where established performers and newcomers share one programme, so the music passes between generations on stage. A gallery named for Nandan Mehta, one of the founders, keeps the memory of the people who began the event. Mixing folk music, dance and semi-classical forms with the classical core keeps the festival open to more than one audience.

Questions people ask about Saptak Annual Festival of Music

See also

GhazalA short rhyming poem of love and parting, recited and sung from Arabia to South AsiaPulikaliPainted tigers and leopards dance through Thrissur on the fourth day of OnamBhangraA Punjabi harvest dance, first kept by farmers and now performed worldwideQawwaliDevotional Sufi singing from South Asia, led by hereditary parties at shrines

Good reading and sources

• Saptak Annual Festival of Music on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

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