Bay Area Bengali Music Festival
May 11, 2019 4PM to 830PM
McAfee Auditorium, Saratoga High School
20300 Herriman Ave, Saratoga, CA 95070
A large number of musicians from the San Francisco Bay area are collaborating together to organize a Bengali music festival for a noble cause. The goals of this festival are as follows.
The important goals of this festival are as follows:
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Bring all the Bengali musicians of the SF Bay Area together to collaborate and cooperate to perform in a set of thematic Bengali musical programs.
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Present the diversity of Bengali music cutting across multiple eras and multiple genres.
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Produce high-quality programs and maximize participation. The participation is not limited to any social organization of the SF Bay Area or any specific band/musical group. The collaboration is based on the common interest in producing the best musical experience possible.
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Promote bay area's local talent including our Next Gen young artists to produce a musical program on their own (with appropriate guidance).
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Proceeds from the sale of tickets and donations will go to a non-profit organization, helping underprivileged children and women of West Bengal. The non-profit organization chosen for this year is "Promise Worldwide (www.promiseworldwide.org)”.
The various genres/ segments this festival will present are:
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Next Gen (আগামী প্রজন্মের কন্ঠে বাংলা গান): The children of the SF Bay Area (30+ children) will present group songs, accompanied by talented Next Gen musicians.
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Traditional Bengali Songs (পঞ্চকবি, পুরাতনি, লোকগীতি, বাউল, ভাটিয়ালি...): Traditional segment spans Thumri, Dadra, Puratoni, Ragpradhan, Tappa, Ghazal, Tagore, Nazrul, DL Ray, Rajanikanta Sen, Atul Prasad, Baul, Maatir Gaan.
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Classical Based Bengali Songs (রাগ আশ্রয়ী বাংলা গান): We present a short program on classical based Bengali music that shows the rich lineage and evergreen music that stands strong thru test of age, shows the rasa, moods, seasons and sometimes just pure joy of music through short glimpses of popular compositions by great composers like Rabindranath, Nazrul, Anil Bagchi, Hemanto Mukherjee, Shyamal Mitra, Kishore Kumar, Ajay Chakraborty and RD Burman.
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Modern Bengali Songs (আধুনিক): As the title implies, it will cover a number of modern Bangla songs, not covered in the "Traditional" segment (mostly from golden era and more). The focus will be songs from a limited set of composers (chosen to limit the huge scope) -- Sachin Dev Burman, Salil Choudhury , Nachiketa Ghosh, Sudhin Dasgupta, Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, RD Burman and few more.
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Bengali Songs in Instrumental (পশ্চিমি যন্ত্র সঙ্গীতে বাংলা গানের সুর): This section will render an interesting take on music by Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Roy, Salil Choudhury, and a more recent Jeet Ganguli.
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Contemporary Bengali Songs (জীবনমুখি, বাংলা ব্যান্ড ও সমসাময়িক বাংলা গান): This section will present a very distinctive genre of Bangla Gaan - fundamentally non-elitist, influenced by world music and very modern poetry. It includes romanticism with reality, experimentation with folk, the inspirational and aspirational vocabulary of Moheener Ghoraguli, Suman Chattopadhyay, Anjan Dutta, Nachiketa, Moushumi Bhoumik, Chandrabindoo, Moushumi Bhowmick, Anupam Roy.
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Rock (বাংলা রক): Rock continues to be the most popular and resilient genre world-wide - Bangla Rock has created its own space in the soundscape in both the Bengals. This section will render classics from LRB, Somlata, Anjan Dutta, Fossils and Baul-rock.
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Grand Finale
Bay Area Bengali Music Festival is made possible for more than 120 persons’ dedication, talent, and time commitment. For more than 6 months performers and volunteers have sacrificed their weekends and weekday evenings to plan, practice, sale tickets, get sponsorship, paint banners, design brochures, host practice and meetings. There will be around seventy-five participants performing on stage, another fifty will support them behind the stage to make this program a memorable Bay Area event that people will talk about for years to come. This program is dedicated to all those participants whether they are on or off stage.
Abhijit Sil
Ajoy Chattopadhyay
Amit Saha
Amitabha Ghosh
Ananya Vats Das
Anika Ganguly
Animikh Sen
Anindya Chakraborty
Anirban Ghosh
Anisha Chatterjee
Ankita Chatterjee
Anoop Bhattacharjya
Anurupa Chakraborty
Anusha Majumdar
Arindam Samanta
Arjo Dhar
Arpita Chattopadhyay
Arunika
Aryaman Majumder
Ashwin Krishnakumar
Atanu Gupta
Ayush Kumar Talapatra
Bibek Ghosh
Bidan Sinha
Binayak Roy
Bipasha Sinha
Biswapesh Chattopadhyay
Chandreyee Mukherjee
Chandrima Mitra
Dalia Sen
Debjani Roy Biswas
Devaki Bhattacharya
Dhritiman Dasgupta
Dipankar
Divya Sarkar
Drisana Roy
Evani Snyder
Gargi
Gaurav Chakravarty
Gautam Naha
Goutam Dey
Ishani Roy
Ishayan Vats Das
Jaya Basu
Jayanti Mallick
Jayashree Ray
Joy Ghosh
Joyeeta Mitra
Judhajit Chakraborty
Kalapi Roy-Neogi
Kheya
Kimsukh Kundu
Mahuya Dhar
Malini Bannerjee
Manjishta
Megha Basu
Moonmita Ghosh
Moyna Bhattacharya
Partha Pratim Bera
Payeli
Pinaki Mukherjee
Pradip Sen
Pradosh Sarkar
Pranay Sen
Prasenjit Biswas
Preeti
Radhika Sinha
Raghav
Rajit Saha
Rik Dev Mukherjee
Romy Chakraborty
Rupsha Dutta
Saborni Kundu
Samrat Chakravarty
Sandip Bhattacharya
Sangeeta Choudhury
Sanjib Saha
Santanu
Sarthak Das Sharma
Saswati Hazra
Sayanti Bhattacharya
Shailaja Vats
Shikha
Shirshanka Das
Shohini Roy
Shouvik Neogi
Shrabanti
Shraboni Bhattacharya
Shubho Sengupta
Siddhartha Dasgupta
Sky Basu
Soham Saha
Somdev Sen
Sonali Bhattacharya
Sourabh Bhattacharya
Srabasti Mukherjee Gupta
Subarna Bhattacharya
Subhadra
Subhankar Dhar
Subhanku Chatterjee
Subhen Khatua
Sudip Nag
Sudipta Chatterjee
Sudipto Neogi
Sujon Bin Wadud
Sulagna
Surajit Pathak
Suvagata Chatterjee
Swagata Kundu
Tamalika Mukherjee
Tania
Tanirika
Tanish Gupta
Tapajyoti Gupta
Tia
Tim
Toshan Gupta
Trisha Guha
Tuhin Sen
Urmi
Vihaan
Vivek
Wallace Harvey