Dance and Music Reviews : ‘Maharishi’s Festival’ Focuses on World Peace

Call it the power of prayer or another influence in which the spiritual concentration of a few attempts to affect many. According to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, it’s called “the Maharishi Effect.”

Saturday night at Royce Hall, UCLA, “Maharishi’s Festival of Music for World Peace” attracted many enthusiastic Maharishi followers--along with some curious non-disciples--eager to change the world via meditation. With the subtitle “1988--the First Step Towards Heaven on Earth,” the part-concert, part-lecture, part-meditation session, part-worship service, part-fund-raiser, emphasized bliss and positive thinking--the Occidental counterpart perhaps being something like Robert Schuller’s “Hour of Power.”

The evening began with a patronizing oration by Aleric Arenander, a professor at UCLA and devotee to Maharishi, and a video, recorded in India, of Maharishi reciting much the same information about Gandharva-Veda music. Repeatedly, the audience was reminded that this was not entertainment, but an attempt to bring about world peace.

Finally, the four musicians performed.

Situated on a stage bedecked with flowers, greenery and a picture of the Maharishi, the amplified Gandharvans droned and plucked. Improvising on a raga called shri , they played non-stop for about an hour, beginning without pulse, moving into a hypnotic beat helped along by the tabla and ending with a section played apparently as fast as possible.

Devabrata (Debu) Chaudhuri commanded the sitar with careful consideration for the music, bending pitches masterfully and gliding through fast passages with ease. Somnath Mukhopadhyay also proved virtuosic with multifarious tappings on the tabla.

The other two performers were Chaudhuri’s wife, Manjusree, who diligently provided the drone on the tanpura, and their 16-year-old son, Prateek, who also played sitar, but with a much lighter touch than his father.

After an intermission, they continued with two folk melodies and an encore. The audience responded with immediate standing ovations.