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Sufi Music

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With musical spirit on a high, Day 2 of Nexus’16 flagged off with music in the air with the Indian vocals group competition – Alaap on 4th March 2016. The competition saw participation from 13 teams belonging to various DU colleges among which Geetanjali, Indian music society of Miranda House out shined others by bagging the 1st position followed by Daulat Ram College bagging the 2nd position.

Follwed by the Indian Vocals was the Street Dance competition, held in the Audi Lobby, which saw many power packed performances. The crowd went wild with applause as the performers pulled seemingly impossible flips and stunts. The judge Mr. Arjun, from PSD – a street dance project, finally declared Zest from Dayal Singh College as the winners followed by CVS streets team in the 2nd position.

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However, the range of events lined up at Day 2 didn’t end with this. Day 2 was full of myriad solo events which also included Western Dance (Solo) Competition. More than 25 participants registered who had about five minutes to present their performances. The event was judged by Mr. Shivank Chauhan and Mr. Sanjay Batra, both professors at the college. Manpreet of School of Open Learning as declared the winner while Sanjeevani of Zakir Husain College and Surbhi of Deshbandhu College were declared as the Runner’s Up.

Following the Western Dance (Solo) event was the Western Music (Choir) Competition which saw nine teams participating from all over Delhi University. The event was judged by Mr. Aftab Bose, a graduate from Swarna Bhoomi School of Music. The event was in the Acappella format where teams were given a maximum of 12 minutes to bring forward their presentations. Zephyr, the Western Music Society of Kamala Nehru College bagged the first position followed by the Western Music Society of Lady Shri Ram College for Women at the second position.

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Zephyr-The Western Music Society of KNC emerged as the winners of the Western vocals group competition at Nexus’16.

Rejoicing their win, Raya Dhar, Piya Podder and Kriti Mamgain of Zephyr said, “We were treated as underdogs for quite some time. But we kept working hard and it has finally paid off. The underdogs are now getting recognised!”

On the solo event front, Indian Vocal Solo competition, organised by Alaap, witnessed performances by 8 participants, each accompanied by an instrumentalist. The first position, being a tie was won by Bineet Singh (GTBIT) and Saptak Chatterjee(Hansraj College). Likewise, the second position was shared by Swaradhana (DRC) and Saayon (DTU). Among the variety of events, the film making event saw Alex Arthur from SRM University bag the first position while Effulgence from Venky grabbed the second spot. You can catch up the winning entry here.

A ‘Duo dance based on theme’ event was held with a total of 7 teams participating from various colleges of Delhi University.  Aishwarya and Raghav of Sri Venkateswara college bagged the first position followed by Umesh and Ankita of Satyawati college with the second position. The winning team performed a fusion between Kathak and Bharatnatyam and the event was judged by Mrs. Kodhai Nayarayan,  a Bharatnatyam exponent.

Day 2 of Nexus drew to a close with a soulful Sufi rendition, with the much awaited performance by the Nizami Khusro Brothers, who energised the audience with popular renditions like Allah Hu, Kun Faya, Kajrare and many more. Sufi night was followed by Razzmataz, the Western dance event, which saw Miranda’s Tanz winning the first spot while Maitreyi’s Zeal was adjudged as the runner up team.

Reporters:

Tarushi Varma

Arushi Pathak

Shefali

Lovleen Kaur

Image Credits: Vegh Daswani, Gerush, Vibhana Kanwar, Uzma Rehman 

Feature image Credits: Gerush for DU Beat 

Riya Chhibber

[email protected] 


‘Project Smoke’-Blue Frog records

Ashutosh Phatak and Dhruv Ghanekar, celebrated names in the fashion music circles and ad jingle world have put their collective music talent together for Smoke Signals, the debut album of the duo’s Project Smoke.

Smoking Signals boasts of music that is beyond boundaries. It successfully and aesthetically brings together a very bohemian fusion of western symphonies, Sufi rock, Indian classical, electronica and even traditional Indian thumri. The diagonally opposite music interests of Ashu and Dhruv have resulted in this exceptionally interesting album.

For the uninitiated, they are the same duo which composed music for offbeat movies like Bombay Boys and White Noise. Ashu, a graduate in Western Classical Music Theory from University of Pennsylvania has been professionally composing music for the last 15 years. Dhruv began studying Indian Classical Music at the age of nine with Suresh Wadkar and also continued his study under great sarangi exponent Sultan Khan. He has performed and worked with great musicians like Karl Peters, Louis Banks and Adrian D’souza and continues to compose music in virtually all genres.

Interestingly, this album was actually made for a fashion designer’s show 5 years back and when their dues weren’t cleared, the duo came up with this idea of releasing the album and saving the effort of writing new songs.

There are nine tracks in the album. The opening track Windy is a nice soothing song and surely gives positive vibes about things to come. Another interesting track is Tsunami which sounds like an intoxicated Sufi rhythm and not like someone cashing in on the agony of the victims. There’s something for jazz lovers and even gothic metal fans.

All in all, its a contemporary album with all the right elements thrown in. So, if you need a break from the ear deafening hard rock and the dreamy Bollywood music, this is the album to look up to.