To mark the birth anniversary of Ustad Zia Moinuddin Dagar, the Dhrupad Sansthan is organsining a 24 hours marathon of musical performances in city. The musical marathon along with painting exhibition and poetry recital will be marked as International Day of Dhrupad on Wednesday.
The event will witness performances by atleast 19 dhrupad artists and three pakhavaj players. This is not it, but, as many as 34 poets will be reciting their poetries on the occasion. Further a group exhibition of around 40 artists will be put up to mark the D-day.
The grand event is being organized in the memory of Ustad Zia Moinuddin Dagar. Zia Mohiuddin Dagar was born on March 14 1929. Hei s popularly known as Z. M. Dagar, was a North Indian (Hindustani) classical musician, one of the 19th generation of Dagar family dhrupad musicians.
He was trained both in vocals and in the rudra veena, an instrument used by vocalists to practice melodies. The veena was traditionally not played in public, but the young Zia Mohiuddin adopted it as his primary instrument, giving his first recital at age 16. He was largely responsible for the revival of the rudra vina as a solo concert instrument.
Although he was discouraged by his father from experimenting with the structure of the veena, he nevertheless modified the instrument after his father's death to better equip it for solo performance, transforming it into a larger bass instrument.
Dagar was known particularly for his slow development of ragas, typically performed only with tanpura accompaniment, and for his meticulous attention to microtonal inflections. In 1990, he was awarded the Kalidas Samman, one of India's most prestigious awards, by the Madhya Pradesh government. He also received the Sangeet Natak Academi Award, the Rajasthan Sangeet Natak Academi award and the Maharana Kumbha award too.