Since 2006, Waltham based Learnquest Academy of Music has been organizing annual music conferences that feature stalwarts of Indian Classical music in a multi-day festival held at Regis College, 235 Wellesley St, Weston, MA. This year’s festivities will begin on Friday, March 23 at 8pm at the Sanders Theatre in Harvard University. LearnQuest in partnership with WorldCrashArts will present the “Masters of Percussion” show featuring world renowned tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain and flautist Rakesh Chaurasia. Beginning on Sunday, March 25, a series of FREE lecture-cum-demonstrations will lead upto the main music festival which will begin on the evening of Friday, March 30 at 6:30pm and end around 11pm. The music recitals will continue all day on Saturday, March 31 and Sunday, April 1 between 10:30AM to 10:30PM. Learnquest 2018 music festival tickets may be purchased at the Learnquest website http://tickets.learnquest.org/conference2018/

This year’s annual music festival is the 13^th presentation in the series and will feature renowned classical artists of the Hindustani tradition, vocalists Kaushiki Chakraborty, Rachna Bodas and Samarth Nagarkar,  Sitarist Purbayan Chatterjee, Santoor artist Satish Vyas and Sarod artist Tejendra Narayan Majumdar.  Master artists from the Carnatic tradition will include vocalists T.V Sankarnarayanan, Bombay Jayashree, Aishwarya Vidya Raghunathan and Sikkil Gurucharan, Flautist Shashank Subramanyam and Guitar artist Prasanna. A unique “Shadow and Light” fusion featuring vocalist Pavithra Chari and percussionist Anindo Bose will also be part of the festival this year. Several accomplished artists will provide instrumental accompaniment to the featured performers.

A short Dhrupad style invocation featuring Hindustani vocalists of the Boston area will kick-off the music festival at 6:30pm on Friday, March 30. The legendary Carnatic vocalist, T.V Sankarnarayanan will present the next segment at 7pm and the popular Hindustani vocalist Kaushiki Charaborty will take stage at 9pm that evening. The Saturday program on March 31 features Hindustani vocalist Samarth Nagarkar, a jugalbandi featuring flautist Shashank Subramanyam and sitarist Purbayan Chatterjee, a shadow and light fusion show, Carnatic vocalist Bombay Jayashree and a Sarod recital by Tejendra Narayan Majumdar. The Sunday program on April 1 features Carnatic vocalist Aishwarya Vidhya Raghunath and Sikkil Gurucharan, Hindustani vocalist Rachna Bodas, Guitar recital by Prasanna and a finale presentation by Satish Vyas on the Santoor.

A series of free lecture demonstrations will precede the festival starting on Sunday, March 25 at 5pm with the “Boogie Chalan-Crossroads and Confluences in Raga and Blues” show taking place at the Academy of Creative Arts, 12 A St, Burlington, MA 01803. This lecture-demonstration will explore similarities and differences that exist between the Eastern and Western traditions with respect to melody, rhythm, form, and improvisational structures.

“Appreciating Carnatic Music” lecture-demonstration will happen on Monday, March 26 between 7 and 9 pm at The Hall, 125 Prospect Street, Framingham, MA 01701. This workshop will provide insights about the basic components of Carnatic music along with singing and explaining the ways in which one can appreciate and enjoy this form of music. 

“A Comparison of Carnatic and Hindustani styles of Indian Classical Music through Violin” will happen on Tuesday, March 27 between 1and 3pm at the Berklee School of Music, David Friend Recital Hall, 921 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02115. The lecture demonstration will expose the audience to the two styles of Indian Classical Music. Compositions in both styles will be presented to showcase the similarities and differences between the Carnatic and Hindustani styles.  

“De-coding Dance”, a lecture-demonstration and interactive Kathak workshop will happen on Wednesday, March 28 between 7 and 9 pm at YMCA, 316 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115.

“Honoring the contributions of late Vidushi Girija Devi to the Poorabi Ang Thumri Genre” will take place on Thursday, March 29 between  7-9 pm at the Boston University, College of Fine Arts, Marshall Room, 855 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215 This discussion will be about the life and contributions of the late Vidushi Girija Devi (May 1929 - October 2017), a legendary north Indian classical vocalist who was a trendsetter in the art of Thumri-singing.

As in the past 12 years, the Learnquest annual music conference will be attracting the interest of music connoisseurs from all over USA. Ravi Arora, Leading the 2018 conference, said “Every year, LearnQuest brings lovers of soulful music together in a spring-time celebration of vivid colors and beautiful soundscapes. Love, hope and a quest for peace mark this time and it is only fitting that this festival creates an especially magical venue for dreams to abound.”  Founder and director of the Learnquest Academy, Dr. Pradeep Shukla added that the goal of the 2018 conference continues to be to create an immersive cultural experience in a multi-day format, in the same manner that “Sangeet Sammelans” are organized in India. Indian Classical music lovers are in for a nine day long musical treat that begins on Friday, March 23 with the Masters of Percussion, Ustad Zakir Hussain show and ends with a Santoor recital by Pandit Satish Vyas on Sunday, April 1.

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