The Saptak Annual Festival of Music is an annual thirteen-day Indian classical music festival held in Ahmedabad, India. It is organised by Saptak School of Music from the 1st to 13th January every year and is attended by hundreds of people.
All leading vocalists as well as instrumentalists participate on this platform regularly. Some of the innovative features of this festival have been instrumental and dance ensembles, Tala Vadya Kacheri, Rajasthani and Punjabi folk music. Saptak also tries to keep alive the fading traditions of vocal music like Thumri and Dhrupad, and instruments like Sarangi and Pakhawaj by inviting the older generation of artists specializing in these fields. The students of Saptak also perform in the presence of renowned musicians, musicologists and a large appreciative audience.
History
The festival started in 1980 by Nandan Mehta and his wife Manju Mehta, Rupande Shah, Bharti Parikh and D.D. Trivedi, with the inauguration by Pandit Ravi Shankar and Pandit Kishan Maharaj. The one-day event in 1980 expanded to the performance of more than 130 musicians in 15 sessions spread across 13 days by 2010.
The festival features both emerging talents and established performers. Besides pure classical music, it also includes performances of folk music, classical dance forms, and semi-classical forms such as thumri.
