Basking in the Glow of Diwali at Symphony Center

Even though the marriage’s prospects looked promising; it was still surprising to see it succeed with such dazzling effect.  Chicago Sinfonietta, one of Chicago’s great musical assets, celebrated Diwali at Symphony Center Monday night with a program that merged two classical music worlds.  It also sagely incorporated the dynamic richness of South Asian dance by inviting Mandala Arts dance ensemble to perform with them during their rendition of Stravinsky’s The Fire Bird Suite.   

 A centuries old Hindu festival, Diwali commemorates the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance and good over evil.  Love + Light, The Jubilant Return of Diwali, was crafted to reflect the holiday’s optimism by paving a musical path of promise and fulfillment.  It was guest conductor’s Sameer Patel’s inspiration to use Stravinsky’s iconic Fire Bird Suite as the melodic canvas to tell the quintessential story of Ram. Stravinsky’s original score and premise as well as the tale of Ram overflow with mystery, mythology and potent elements of fantasy.  Much like the mystical firebird is so essential in helping to vanquish evil in Stravinsky’s Russian fable, a Monkey God acts as a facilitating protector to Ram in the ancient Diwali epic; allowing him to defeat the arch demon Hanuman.

Breaking up the program in three parts and making the power of love a cornerstone of each, Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, Op 72b opened the concert.  Taken from the composer’s only opera, it chronicles the courageous feats a wife will attempt to save her condemned husband.   The overture is striking in its scope; running the gamut of emotions from deep melancholy to explosive jubilance in a shockingly compressed time span.  Under Mr. Patel’s baton, the Sinfonietta glowed with the cool adroitness that typifies so many of their appearances.  The overture’s ecstatic climax revealed the physicality playing in an orchestra can entail when the entire string section erupted in sustained harmonic frenzy.

Setting expectations for the second component of the night’s entertainment, conductor Patel and choreographer Ashwaty Chennat jointly delivered a succinct and tantalizing primer on what was to follow; the grafting of a revered Indian saga onto a renowned fixture in the canon of western classical music.

Re-enacting the legend of Ram in dance to Stravinsky’s music added luster to both.  Chennat, who created the choreography, combined contemporary western dance movements with the highly-stylized poses and beguiling hastas or hand gestures that define traditional dance of the Indian subcontinent.  The hybrid she designed was a slight shift from another dance event honoring Diwali and featuring Mandala Arts last week at the Studebaker.  Here, an effort to overlay exceptional dance technique to a more literal dance narrative resulted in a tour de force.    Dance and music were synced to the note; turning the co-dependence of stylized movement to music into rapturous synergy. 

Dancing the role of Sita, Ram’s beloved and endangered wife, Chennat, along with a small corps of dancers transformed the hall’s stage into an ancient forest full of shape shifting danger.  Laksha Dantran as Rama and Keeley Morris and Berit Godo who made up the dance chorus, along with Chennat, were all unerringly splendid. The more the dance and the music continued, the less you wanted either to end. 

Doubtless there were many in the audience who had no idea what was in store for them after the break.  Even with his global reputation and remarkable artistic accomplishments, Dr. L. Subramaniam is not the household name in the United States that it may be in other parts of the world.  Although he had been exposed to music early in life and exhibited considerable musical prowess when he was very young, it was a video Dr. Subramaniam saw while in medical school that changed the course of his life.  The world is a better place as result of that chance viewing of Heifetz playing the violin; compelling Dr. Subramaniam to seriously study classical western music. 

Featuring the violin concerto, Shanti Priya in E, Ls 231, a work that laces classical music of the east with that of the west, allowed Chicago to witness the gifts of a profound talent and made the final segment of the program transcendent.  Accompanied by two percussionists proficient in the classical music of southern India, as well as the full Sinfonietta orchestra, Dr. Subramaniam’s violin virtuosity stunned with the depth of its incomprehensible beauty.  Embracing the soul piercing richness of the east and finely wrought ephemeral delicacy, the expansive concerto carried the audience through epochs of music and cultures. 

In explaining Diwali at the beginning of the evening, maestro Patel spoke of the spirit of inclusion the festival inherently embodies.  Artistic commemorations like Love + Light, The Jubilant Return of Diwali, exemplify the excellence that inclusion can bring.

The Chicago Sinfonietta

Love + Light, The Jubilant Return of Diwali

November 11, 2019

7:30pm

Symphony Center

220 S. Michigan Avenue

Chicago, IL   60604

www.chicagosinfonietta.org