Music knows no boundaries

Barriers are being broken and new friendships are being forged across borders as Banglanatak dot com, in its newest collaboration, has teamed up with Arnob Chowdhury, the biggest music sensation from Bangladesh, to create soulful music and serve its end motive of promotion and development of culture
Music knows no boundaries
Published on
As the music concert on the evening of June
11, 2015 ended at Kala Academy, it marked the
beginning of new friendships and bondings
extending beyond manmade boundaries. The
event that was brought together by Banglanatak
dot com, Elvis Lobo (from Goa) and Arnob &
Friends (from Dhaka) to extend their support
to the people of Nepal, was nothing short of
magic created by a bunch of extremely talented
musicians who came together to support a noble
cause. Banglanatak dot com, an organisation
that has been tirelessly working towards its cause
of promoting culture and its development in
different parts if India, has been collaborating
with talented musicians and artists, this time from
across the borders in Bangladesh; and things look
only brighter from here.
The first collaboration, named East West Local,
comprised Goan musicians like Elvis Lobo and
folk musicians from Bengal including Debalina
Bhowmick, who first performed at WOMEX
(World Music Expo) 2014. Immediately, the team
was selected to perform at the MIPAF festival in
Malaysia and this year, East West Local has been
shortlisted to perform at the Copenhagen World
Music Festival that is scheduled to happen in
September 2015. The music produced by this
band has entered the top 30 in World Music
Charts of 2014. Amitava Bhattacharya, Founder-
Director of Banglanatak dot com, says, “Seeing
the success that we tasted with East West Local,
we wanted to have another collaboration; the first
phase was between West Bengal and Bangladesh
and the second phase was between West Bengal,
Bangladesh and Goa. Goa being the huge talent
pool that it is, there will be one space reserved for
a Goan musician in every collaboration, so that
they may reach out to the World Music Space.
We want to attract the youth to World Music.”
Speaking about the end motive, Bhattacharya
says, “Collaborations mean more people-topeople
contact, new friendships and connecting
the dots. Collaborations and partnerships are
key points of our entire work of culture and
development.”
The current collaboration began at Sufi
Sutra 2014 in Patna and Kolkata, when Arnob
and Debalina came in contact with each other
while doing the opening and closing ceremony
together as part of a multi-artist ensemble.
The discussions commenced around the
end of 2014 and resulted in Debalina visiting
Dhaka and interacting with the team for a
week. Post that, Arnob came to India for a
show and invited Debalina to perform together
and the result was a major hit. The 7-member
team, which is now doing a new collaborative
project, comprises Arnob, Buno, Pantha and
Saadul from Bangladesh and Debalina, Mohan
and Piu from West Bengal. The team performed
together at Nazrul, recorded 10 songs at The
Peninsula Studio in Noida before coming to
Goa for their performance at Kala Academy on
June 11.
Herald Goa
www.heraldgoa.in