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 While
music does communicate across boundaries, traditional music
often tends to remain within its traditional community.
EarthSync’s second festival of music brought together sacred,
western, Sufi, electronic, classical, contemporary and folk
musicians in one unique concert. Musicians from different
cultures performed with each other on the same stage, uniting
different music forms in a spectacular and spellbinding
performance.
EarthSync is a world music record label and production house
based in Chennai. Their passion for traditional music and high
quality productions has taken them to unknown communities and
music forms. The best example of their work is Laya Project – a
musical and visual journey through countries affected by the
2004 tsunami, in the form of a double album and a feature length
music documentary.
The show on Sunday night at the Sir MVR
Concert Hall began with Bonjour, a pulsating track that without
hesitation lifted the audience into the festival’s sound
celebration. While Mishko M’ba’s bass and Yoav Bunzel’s drums
set the groovy pace, Padma Shankar’s violin and RK Ravi
Shankar’s sitar wove sheer magic, and flautist Navin Iyyar took
the melody soaring to unbelievable heights.
Mahesh Vinayakram’s emotional vocals in Heer,
a beautiful track from EarthSync’s soon to be released
electro-folk album Kartick & Gotam, led the way to the next
experience - Rain Buddha from Laya Project. Anuradha
Vishwanathan’s beautiful voice expressing Carnatic music’s
unique elegance crossed music genres to compliment the spiritual
chanting, long horns and cymbals by Buddhist monks Lobsang Norbu
and Lobsang Padma from the Tashi Lhumpo Monastory.
 A
new element was introduced in this year’s festival with
contemporary dancers Sangeeta Ghosh and Chisato Ohno. Sangeeta,
an established and leading practitioner of Indian contemporary
dance, has trained under Tanushree Shankar. Chisato Ohno, has
performing in some of the best dance companies of Europe and
Japan.
Jackie Shemesh’s light and stage design with
an artistic slow motion video sequence of Zohar’s hands playing,
made Fresco’s spectacular solo performance an experience to
remember.
Be it a contemporary, groovy sound of Bonjour
or the fine and magical emotion of Waterside Tales and Sunset in
Akkarai from Laya Project, EarthSync’s high sense of aesthetics
and refined sensibilities is undeniable and evident in every
moment and aspect of the production - the artistic visuals on
the three large screens, light and stage design, the musical
content of the show and the superb quality of the sound design.
 The
EarthSync Festival is a platform for musicians to understand and
communicate with each other, to share their tradition and art
creating an experience that unites artists and audiences in a
musical celebration.
The EarthSync Festival 2008 has for the
second time around, furthered the label’s core commitment “to
nurture the roots music through which cultures express
themselves across time”.
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