10th SaMaPa Aalap festival by maestro Abhay begins in Jammu

The 10th edition of SaMaPa Aalap Festival featuring a santoor recital by music maestro Abhay Rustum Sopori commenced here today.
SaMaPa (Sopori Academy of Music And Performing Arts) organizes the 'SaMaPa Aalap Festival', the annual Classical, Sufi and Folk music festival every year.
The festival which started today will go on till 26th February 2016. The performances will be held in more than 20 different venues in Jammu and adjoining border areas like Samba, Akhnoor, Rajouri, Poonch, RS Pora.
The second part of the festival will later be held in Kashmir region in March this year.
The first session of the festival was inaugurated by Dr Aziz Hajini, Secretary, J&K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, Nagendra Singh, Joint Director, Department of Information and Public Relations, J&K, Sushil Attri at Jodhamal School.

Abhay Rustum Sopori presented Raga Bheem, a rare and a melodious morning raga commencing with soothing Aalap gently unfolding the raga and made the audience full of young students sing with him.

The Jod patterns with the accompaniment of Pakhawaj left the audience spellbound. This was followed by a Sufiana Tarana composition of Abhay's great grandfather, Samsar Chand Sopori, in Ektaal, Bandish.
The Sawal Jawab jugalbandi of tabla and pakhwaj with santoor enthralled the audience and Ustad Akram Khan, one of the finest Tabla maestros of the country joined Abhay on tabla and Rishi Shankar Upadhyay, on Pakhawaj gave splendid accompaniment.

The children had a memorable experience in the concert that went for nearly 2 hours. The concert started followed by Dogri folk music by the young students from Jodhamal Public School.
On the occasion Abhay Sopori highlighted SaMaPa's initiatives and activities in the State.
"My aim has been to keep J&K a culturally vibrant State. I thank the guests, media and music connoisseurs for being part of the SaMaPa movement.
"SaMaPa widens its horizon into the general masses by creating the right platform for better appreciation and understanding of music in leading a more balanced life as well as exploring opportunities as means of employment," he said.

Principal TS Bist said that it's an honour for Jodhamal School to be part of the SaMaPa Aalap Festival right from the beginning and lauded the efforts of Sopori family and its intense role in keeping the J&K culture alive.
He congratulated Abhay Sopori appreciating his path breaking work in this direction in encouraging the young students to take up music and other performing arts. The concert was attended by more than 1200 students and music connoisseurs.