Prepping for Margazhi is like prepping for a marathon: Vignesh Ishwar

The Margazhi season has taken the city by storm, with kutcheris (and kutcheri-hopping) happening in full swing. Vignesh Ishwar, one of the promising talents among the new generation of artistes, talks to us about the season, fusion and more. Excerpts:

“For an artiste, the Margazhi season is a cluster of about 15 to 18 concerts in a span of about 30 days, so preparation for it goes on throughout the year,” begins the young musician. He adds, “We need to improve our skill set with improvisational forms of music, so I start early. I try out different kinds of playlists during the year and attempt certain interesting things with the song collections.”

Elaborating further Vignesh says, “I always try and see if I can sing a song that I haven’t presented before. This concert marathon during Margazhi is exciting yet challenging. Working on our health and building up stamina — not only vocal but also physical — to sit through 22 concerts... it is like prepping for a marathon. It just doesn’t happen one or two months before the season, it’s an ongoing thing that we are always working on because it’s a month of performance and presentation. I try to go to the gym for strength training, do some yoga and breathing exercises. I also try walking every day.

‘AFTER A CONCERT, WE ARE ALWAYS ON A HIGH’How I am on the day of the concert, how I am prepping for it. How does one wind down after the concert? After a concert, we are always on a high. How do you come back from that high and then start prepping for the next one are things I ask myself, so mental stamina is equally important. Sometimes, I switch off on the day before a concert. I don’t do anything during the day. I am at home, trying to get myself in the space mentally to sing, preparing for that high and crashing down to a low. So, it’s very important to kind of mental- ly stay stable and wind down, and having a routine kind of helps for any kind of marathon.

ON FUSIONI’ve always been fascinated with fusion since college. The first-ever fusion band that I heard was Shakti. I had a band in college and did all this experimental music. It’s more about how you can bring together two art forms or two genres together and see how they create a new sound. Something that is not an adulteration of either the art form or the genre. It has to be a meaningful convergence of ideas, sound and values. That’s where real fusion and real collaboration lies and I think all of us, as a generation, today are trying to see if that can happen. Of course, all of us are taking inspiration from our seniors. We just have to think of new ways on how to present our music.

MUSIC HE LISTENS TOI listen to Hindi film music mostly. Earlier, I used to listen to Colonial Cousins a lot. I’m a big fan of Shankar Mahadevan. I have heard his Breathless and all his movie songs. I love Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar. After coming to Madras, I started listening to some Tamil music also, like AR Rahman’s and Ilaiyaraaja’s works. I’ve been working with different genres of music, so I listen to Arab, Andalusian, and Turkish music and also a little bit of opera.
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