By Our Spl Correspondent
Shillong: On the occasion of World Music Day, the North East Zone Cultural Centre, Dimapur in collaboration with Department of Arts and Culture, Government of Meghalaya and NEHU organised a musical extravaganza at the Convocation Hall, NEHU.
Musicians from all the eight states displayed not only their unique musical talent but also their finery and indigenous musical instruments crafted out of bamboo. The Assam Bamboo Band with a range of exquisite bamboo instruments held the audience spellbound while the Chanu Miah group from Tripura entertained with their dholaks and showmanship.
It was a musical festival of a different kind as this was perhaps the first time that people of the North East were able to hear the Sofynim group from Sikkim which comprised a groups of musicians from the Lepcha community.
Rewben Mashangva of Manipur in his traditional attire and strumming the guitar to the indigenous beats got the audience foot-tapping and singing along as he engaged them with his song and jig.
Voices Na Rympei created a magical fusion of voices of all eight states.
But the electrical circuits went kaput in the middle of their performance. They had to pack up prematurely.
A show of that magnitude needed a state of the art hall with good acoustics but this is what Shillong woefully lacks. The Convention Hall though spacious is like an open air amphitheatre except that it has a roof. Nevertheless the crowd, comprising mainly the student community of NEHU seemed to enjoy the show immensely and cheered and clapped spontaneously.
The icing on the cake for the evening was the performance by Meghalaya’s favourite musical group — Shillong Chamber Choir (SCC) led by its director Neil Nongkynrih. The surprise package for the evening was actor Rahul Bose’s recitation of Rabindranath Tagore’s famous poem Where the mind is without fear before the SCC launched into their own version of Vande Mataram.
The crowd was euphoric just seeing Bose get on to the stage. Later the actor was mobbed by the hundreds of NEHU sophomores.
Rahul Bose and Konkana Sen Sharma have been in Shillong to shoot for a film on Tagore.
Later the Choir entertained the crowd with their own version of Kolaveri-D while William Richmond in his rich and versatile voice did a Freddie Mercury number, Can anybody find me somebody to love.
Omuk Collective from Arunachal Pradesh, Nagagenous of Nagaland and the Riakmaw musical band from Mizoram delighted their audience with their gentle and harmonious rendition of traditional and Gospel music.
Earlier, Meghalaya Governor RS Mooshahary who was the chief guest gave a brief speech.