''The festival sets our actual objective in motion''... Luva Nahid Choudhury

Photo: Ridwan Adid Rupon

From the organising perspective, if the Bengal Classical Music Festival is a complex, intricate and multi-level system, Luva Nahid Chowdhury is the control room of it. The Director General of Bengal Foundation has been instrumental in making the last two years' events a success, and with the festival returning this year bigger than ever, The Daily Star caught up with her on her views and visions:

At the last two year's festivals, it never looked like anything at all was out of plan. How do you ensure that?

Luva Nahid Choudhury: Oh, lots of things do not go as planned, and we have had our share of such issues. But the idea is to not let anyone feel that, (smiles) and it takes a lot of very detailed planning. It's not just the event management; laying up the venue layout, negotiations with sponsors and partners, guest management – which is a very large part of our plans, and the infrastructural aspects of the festival – there are separate teams looking into all of that. People only see the festival, but there is an incredible amount of work in the background that cannot be seen. In Bangladesh, there's always complain that organisers aren't organised themselves, but it's our people, from Bangladesh, who are doing it.

But irrespective of how you plan, execution of it is equally important. How is that taken care of?

Luva Nahid Choudhury: I think it comes with the work culture of the organisation; you are expected to fulfill your responsibilities. And everyone has to put in the effort and the hours; it doesn't matter whether I have an invite somewhere in the evening, if I have work I stay back. And I think the others also see their bosses are working longer hours than them, it motivates them to deliver too. And what's very comforting is people adopt this as their own practices, and take charge when needed.

What's your take on the festival growing in terms of artistes and time-span this year?

Luva Nahid Choudhury: I speak from the Foundation's perspective when I say the festival is not our target; the target is to take practice of music in the country to new heights. The festival is a means to do that, perhaps one of the key means, but not the only one. The festival is not the objective; rather, it sets our objective in motion. To incorporate Bangla songs to this year's festival is like tying the end to the beginning, but there are many bridges to be crossed in between. But I want to talk about the young artiste's participation (a classical chorus by the first batch of students from Bengal Parampara Sangeetalaya), I think we as a nation are very quick to catch on to things, and the world knows it by now. And if they don't get stage fright, they are ready for it. So, I think it will get easier every year to incorporate them. And as for audience participation, I think at this age of information, nothing is restricted to a certain class. Who can claim today that they are the only connoisseurs of classical music? And secondly, we never presented it in a diluted or an easy to comprehend form; we gave them the purest form, and it's very satisfying to see that people are receiving it the way they are.