Samarpan enthralls Delhi with its Raga-Jazz offerings

A mix of Indian classical music with a "little Jazz and Carnatic music" is how tabla player Ojas Adhiya describes the music of his band Samarpan. The band performed here on Wednesday.

"We thought of doing something different, but keeping Indian music in mind. It had to be music with an Indian soul, just improvised upon," Adhiya told IANS.

Mentored by different music stalwarts, the six band members -- Ojas Adhiya (tabla), Ninad Mulaokar (flute), Manas Kumar (violin), Vishal Dhumal (keyboard), I.D. Rao (saxophone) and Gautam Sharma (percussion) -- performed with their respective gurus before meating each other. As an offering to what they learnt, their coming together in a band was named 'Samarpan'.

A child prodigy, Adhiya (now 30), as a two-year-old surprised his family by playing the instrument without any training. He started training under guru Mridangraj soon after and gave his first public performance at 4. In 1993, he was recognised as India's youngest tabla player by the Limca Book of Records.

Adhiya who has performed in almost 500 stage shows globally has also accompanied stalwarts like Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ustaad Shujaat Khan, Begum Parween Sultana, Hariharan, Anup Jalota and Talat Aziz.

On Samarpan's performance at the HCL concerts at the India Habitat Centre, Adhiya said all the compositions presented were the band's own, based on Indian 'ragas' with a touch of Jazz.

--IANS

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