Nagpur: The 27th edition of Dr Vasantrao Deshpande music festival will be held from July 28 to 30 at Vasantrao Deshpande Hall. Organized by South Central Zone Cultural Centre (SCZCC) to mark the death anniversary of the renowned vocalist, the festival features a full bouquet of performing arts including vocal, instrumental music and theatre.This year, the festival will open with a Hindustani classical vocal performance by Arti Ankalikar Tikekar, which will be followed by ‘Samwedatun Sangeet’ conceptualized by local artist Renuka Deshkar, informs a press note issued by the cultural centre. Day 2 of the festival will see performances of Sawani Shende Sathe followed by a solo tabla performance by Pt Shubhankar Banerjee from Kolkata.The festival will close with a musical drama ‘Sanyast Khadag’, written by Veer Savarkar. The play, directed by Pramod Pawar, is a Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangh presentation. All performances will be held at Vasantrao Deshpande hall and will commence at 6.30pm.Commenting upon the presentation of the musical play, SCZCC director Deepak Khirwadkar told TOI, “Musical plays are a dying genre and are rarely staged these days. We wish to make the younger generation familiar with this form.” Though the play has been written by Veer Savarkar, there is nothing political about it, he said. “The play deals with the orthodox practices prevalent in the society during the early 30s and he speaks about the virtues of Buddhist ideology,” Khirwardkar explained, adding, “But the most important reason for including it in this year’s event is that some of the semi-classical songs in the drama had been sung by Vasantrao Deshpande. The original compositions where by Dinanath Mangeshkar and Vasantraoji had high respect for him.”Entry passes for the event will be available at SCZCC from July 23 from 11am to 5pm. The centre is charging Rs200 per pass, which will admit one person and is valid for all three days.

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