On behalf of Sur Singar Samsad, MK Patel organised the 62nd Swami Hariidas Sangeet Sammelan for three days from 17^th October to 19^th October at Mayor Hall of All India Institute of Local Self Government, Juhu Gali, Andheri, Mumbai. Top classical vocalists and instrumentalists  enthralled the listeners with their melodious music. The guest of honour was  Dilip Shinde, Chief Commissioner for Right to Public Service and Shreeran Pande, Joint director of directorate of Cultural Affairs, Maharashtra.

The festival commenced in the evening of Monday 17th October with a tabla duet recital by father and son duo Pt Madan Mishra and Santosh Mishra. It was amazing to watch the dexterity of the 72 year old maestro with the fine synchronization by the talented son Santosh followed with the commendable vocal recital by Sania Patankar from Pune. Pt Pradip Kumar Barot from Mumbai  rendered a soul-stirring Sarod recital and the music for the evening concluded with the traditional Dhrupad music by Pt Vinod Kumar Dwivedi and  son Ayush Dwivedi from Kanpur. It proved the point that the Dhrupad style of singing has an audience today too.

The second day of the festival commenced with the vocal recital by dynamic Gauri Pathare from Mumbai, followed by the Hindustani violin recital by Durga Sharma from Bengaluru. Durga regaled the audience with the melodic quality of the stringed instrument. It was amazing to listen to the diva of Hindustani music, singing with the melodious quality of a teenage singer at the matured age of 86. Kankana Banerjee from Mumbai created a lasting impression and the evening festival concludes with divine flute music recital by Pt Nityanand Haldipur. Nityanand is a graded performer for All India Radio and Doordarshan and has several recitals to his credit. Over the years, his music takes you to a different level altogether.

The concluding evening of the three days festival featured Sarangi duet by Sangeet and Sandeep Mishra, not many practitioners for this rare stringed instrument which is also known as 'Sau rangi" (100 colours). The accomplished duo enthralled the audience, followed with commendable Hindustani vocal recital by Dr Neeta Mathur from New Delhi.

On this occasion Dr Neeta released the second part of her book 'Shastriya Sangeet Ke Surya". Veteran maestro Pt Kartick Kumar captured the audience with Sur Bahar recital. Incidentally the Sur Bahar is considered the original version of the Sitar, hence different in its tonal quality of music and the grand finale performer of the festival was Ustad Ahsan Ahmed Khan creating a lasting impression with his deep sonorous voice.

The accompanying artists in Tabla, Pakhawaj and Harmonium were Pushkaraj Joshi, Gurushan Singh, Swapnil Bhise, Saurav Chakravborty, Amit Mishra, Milind Joshi, Mrinal upadhyay, Monoj Solanki, Kunal Patil, Supriya Modak,Vinod Padge and Niranjan Lele.

The Chairman of Sur Singar Samsad is Bhajan Samrat Anoop Jalota and the professional compere for the festival was Anand Singh of AIR. 

By Guru Vijay Shanker