n Showtime Desk Online and off-line registration will open in early November, as the five-day-long festival’s line-up is confirmed, which features the major exponents of classical music from both Bangladesh and India Bengal Foundation has confirmed that the fourth edition of Bengal Classical Music Festival will run from November 27 to December 1 at the Army Stadium. Already considered as one of the biggest classical music festivals in the region in terms of attendee, the festival’s registration will open in early November for a limited period of time. This year, festival’s epochal introduction would be the internationally famed tabla player, Zakir Hussain, with Jayaprada Ramamurthy is on the flute, Carnatic vocalist M Balamurali Krishna, khayal singer Shubha Mudgal, Shruti Sadolikar and dhrupad singer Wasifuddin Dagar have all been confirmed to perform for the first time in the festival. Violinists from three generations lead by N Rajam, who is known as the singing violin of India, will come for the first time to enthral the audience. Raja and Radha Reddy, a dancing couple who are renowned as exponents of the South Indian dance form of Kuchipudi, are new in the festival as well. The frequent performers who won audience’s heart in their previous visits to Dhaka including Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, Pandit Suresh Talwalkar, Pandit Ulhas N Kashalkar, Pandit Tejendra Narayan Majumdar and Ustad Rashid Khan have confirmed to be featured this year as well. Details of the event came out in a press conference yesterday in the capital where Abul Khair Litu, Chairman of Bengal Foundation, Syed Fahim Munaim, CEO of Maasranga TV, Syed Mahbubur Rahman, MD of BRAC Bank Limited, Malik Mohammad Sayeed, Head of Marketing of Square Toiletries and Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, COO of Robi, among others, were present for the occasion. The festival is presented by Square Group and supported by BRAC Bank Ltd, while Robi Axiata Ltd is its telecom partner. The festival is dedicated to artist Qayyum Chowdhury, who fell sick while delivering his speech on the fourth-day of last year’s festival and lost his breath when rushed to the hospital.
