Last Saturday, Classical Music Academy (CMA) arranged a show in the Chhayanaut auditorium. For the first time in Bangladesh, a chamber orchestra rendered a story on stage through music. The musical was fragmented into two portions: Visiting musician Ricardo Elias Rodriguez’s solo performance with his violin, and a production of orchestra theatre titled “Raham Ali’r Putul Nach.”
Ricardo Elias Rodriguez, a music professor who teaches the violin in University of Veraruz in Mexico, commenced his performance with three classical music pieces followed by renditions of Bangla songs including “Gram Chara Oi Ranga Matir Poth” and “Khanchar Bhitor Ochin Pakhi.”
Ricardo made an immediate impression, drawing a soft, glowing, almost gauzy sound from his string section in the concert’s opening bars. Later, he and the Chamber Orchestra played a DL Roy track “Dhono Dhanne Pushpe Bhora.” Ricardo came to Bangladesh, at the invitation of CMA, to conduct a performance workshop with the students of the academy earlier this week.
After the Ricardo’s solo performance, the audience saw the rendition of an orchestra theatre titled “Raham Ali’r Putul Nach” by the Classical Music Academy Chamber Orchestra; Ricardo also joined the orchestra. Narrator of the story Heera Chowdhury commanded the audience’s attention to the story of Raham Ali, a man who recently arrived at Dhaka from his village, where he used to do puppet shows.
His venture to the big city does not turn out as expected, thanks to forgery, mistrust and other traumatising experiences. He returns to his village and continues his puppet show as before. His brilliant work draws the attention of newspapers, but he denies name and fame, choosing to stay in the village to continue to do what he loves.
Written by Iftekhar Anwar, Md Akash and Smaron Prottoy, the story is accompanied by music created by the chamber orchestra for the entire 40 minutes of the show.