City Symphonies - In the late eighteenth century, Calcutta witnessed an efflorescence of musical experimentations. In the white town, memsahibs took keen interest in the music they heard at the nautch parties and transcribed the songs in western staff notation. They played these ghazals and tuppahs on their harpsichords. The new music acquired a new name – Hindustani Air. In the black town, Nidhu Babu composed tuppahs in Bengali and the kobis locked themselves in battles of musical wit. Keertans and Shyama Sangeet drifted from the temples and rent the evening air. There was music for every ear and every soul. Musicians and music scholars in Kolkata and London bring alive the lost era with their soulful renditions and scholarly comments.
Subha Das Mollick is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and teacher of media & film studies. Her recent films Calcutta Sonata, Dwelling in Travelling and Promising Plastic Polymers have been screened widely and won her critical appreciation and awards. She is also a champion of open education and has designed two courses for teachers - “Cinema in the Classroom” and “Scanning Media”, which have been offered as open education resources for the UNESCO initiative OER4BW.
Event details: Friday 15 September 2023, 6.00 PM onwards at British Council Kolkata, 16 Camac Street, L & T Chambers, Kolkata 700017
To register for free click here
Please note that prior registration is mandatory. For queries please write to Evana.Mukherjee@BritishCouncil.org