Abhishek Raghuram, Nadasurabhi Cultural Association, 18 Mar 2012 @ Heritage Academy

Vocal : Abhishek Raghuram

Violin : B U Ganesh Prasad

Mrudangam : B C Manjunath

Morsing : Pramad Kiran

List:

01  varNam – kAnaDa   ( I came in towards the end of Varnam)

02  tuLasI dala mulacE – mAyAmALavagauLa – Thyagaraja ( O , S )

03  evaraNi – dEvAmrutavarshaNi -  Thyagaraja

04  kOrinavara mosagu – rAmapriya – Patnam Subramanya Iyer ( A,N,S )

       neraval & swara @ ‘ sarivarilOna nannu chouka sEya valaDu nIDu’

05  brOvavamma bangAru – nIlAmbari – Shyama Shastri ( O )

06  sarasa sAma dAna – kApinArAyaNi – Thyagaraja ( O )

07  kari kaLabha mukham – sAvEri – Dikshitar ( A,S,T )

08   uLLavaru shivAlaya mADuvaru – durga – Basavanna (  O )

09  sarvam brahma mayam – madhuvanti ? -  Sadashiva Brahmendra

10  AdidEva paramAtma – sindhu bhairavi -  Annamacharya

11  mangaLam – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja

A very serene, poised and composed concert by Abhishek Raghuram yesterday at the Nadasurabhi. It erased all the bad memories of Odukathur Concert.  An outstanding Ramapriya and a good Saveri main were the picks of the day.

I reached while the varnam was concluding. The hall was packed and the chairs outside were also nearly full. I managed to secure a seat under the canopy of a tree, able to get a distant view of the artist inside the hall. Amidst various ‘surround sounds’ in the form of  cooing birds ( it wasnt the typical chirping) , screching motor cycles, starting of a diesel engine, desparate honking of the cars in hurry ( a near commotion at the gate due to the parkings of vehicles) , the small amplifying speaker was barely audible. Abhishek mving to and fro during alapana made the listening even harder.

All that is forgotten for the briliant music that followed.  A good set of swara with none of his usual diversion made the mayamalavagaula enjoyable. A quick evarani followed before a fabulous ramapriya alapana. He was at his best with a very controlled, orchastrated to the precise effect, progressing beautifully through the alapana. Patnam Subramanya Iyers master piece was sung very wel with some brilliant neraval. After a fast paced peaking of neraval, he continued with a few rounds of lightning fast swaras before settling back to the typical two speed swara variations. I thought he did this brilliantly.

Both Nilambari and kapi narayani were good as fillers. However a short alapana or a round of swara for either one of them would have been appropriate for the overall effect, as there was only one neraval and only two alapana in the whole concert.  His short sketches for both neelambari as well as kapi narayani were very seductive , I was hoping to hear a longer version of alapana.

Saveri main was also great. A long alapana, with restraint ( without getting into the discomfort zone) , he build it up step by step. Very measured and focussed and very well done. B U Ganesh Prasad was just ok in his turn.  His accompaniment in general was just adequate, as I felt in the Ramakrishnan Murthy’s concert. I am likely to listen to him again next week, where he is set to follow Malladi Brothers at Indiranagar Sabha.

Kari Kalabhamukham was a surprise to be taken up as main, instead of other established kritis )I have no qualms against a ganesha kriti to be taken up for main slot). There was no neraval, he did a good round of swaras before handing over to Manjunath. Tani avartanam was very good. Manjunath did a good job supporting the main artist with some great anticipation and some smart interludes.

Post main consisted of a Basavanna vachana in durga and a couple of pieces, concluding a very good concert by Abhishek Raghuram.

 

Abhishek Raghuram , Kalotsav @ Odukathur Mutt 12 Feb 2012

Vocal : Abhishek Raghuram

Violin : Akkarai Subbulakshmi

Mrudangam : Ananth R Krishnan

Ganjira : Guruprasanna

List:

01 sAmi ninnE kOri ( varNam) – Sri – Karur Devudu Iyer  ( O )

02  chAla kallalADu – Arabhi – Thyagaraja  ( N )

         neraval @ ‘iLalO sari vAralalO ‘

03  appa rAma bhakti – pantuvarALi - Thyagaraja  ( A,N,S )

        neraval & swaras @ ‘ trippaTalanu dIrci kaNTi reppavalEnu gAcu mA ‘

04  kArtikEya gAngEya – thODi – Papanasam Sivan ( A,S,T )

05  thillAna ( tana tadana dhim) – mOhanakalyANi – Lalgudi Jayaraman

06 mangaLam – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja

It was a near three hour concert.. only 3 kritis ( apart from the varnam and thillana).  Every thing was long , loud, chaotic and fast. Too many things tried at once , too much to my comfort.

Started 15 min late, he started off with a short sketch of Sri before getting on with the varNam in two speed.  Arabhi kriti started soon ( well, after a change of microphone) and he did an elaborate neraval at iLalo, with varying speed. Pantuvarali alapana was long and pretty decent.  Apparama bhakti also was sung pretty well. Somewhere it got into the high octane mode from the neraval. It was an overall noise since then. In the melee , some of the good shcemes and phrases might have lost its beauty.  Make no mistake, the swara singing was fabulous and he was on a roll with nothing seems to stop him flow of imagination.

Thodi alapana was very long ( but it is normal for his concerts) lasting 30 mins. All that could possibly have done was done there. As the alapana progressed,  he too swayed high and low, left and right , up and down both physically and through kala pramana and octaves. It was intersting to watch him and (than!) listen.  His effort did receive enthusiastic response from the crowd. Akkarai Subbulakshmi, did the same with a 15 odd minute of alapana from her side, more or less followingthe same path. Karthikeya Gangeya was sung well with some intersting sangatis and improvisations from his side. There was no neraval , but had elaborated swaras again, mostly done in second speed. 

Percussion support in general was loud through out. Ananth R Krishnan and Guruprasanna continued their run with a spirited tani avartanam. I liked the way Guruprasanna supported through out the day.  Post main was limited to a thillana in Mohana Kalyani before closing with the mangalam.

 

Abhishek Raghuram @ Indiranagar Sangeetha Sabha 13 Aug 2011

Vocal : Abhishek Raghuram

Violin : Mysore Srikanth

Mrudangam : Anantha R Krishnan

Ghatam : B R Ravikumar

Songlist:

01  varNam ( chalamEla) – darbAr -    Thiruvottiyur Thyagayya ( O)

02  tuLasi dalamulachE – mAyAmALavagauLa – Thyagaraja ( A,S )

03  tuNai purindaruL – varamu – Papanasam Sivan  ( A,N,S )

        neraval & swara @ ‘ patita pAvana garuDavAhana paramapurusha nArAyaNanE’

04  vara nArada nArAyaNa  – vijayaSrI – Thyagaraja ( S )

05  akshaya linga vibhO – SankarAbharaNam – Dikshitar   ( A,N,S,T )

        neraval & swara @ ‘ badarI vanamula nAyikA sahita ‘

06  allidE nammanE – rAgEshrI ?? - Purandara Dasa ( A )

07 patiki hArati rE – surutti – Thyagaraja

08 mangaLam ( nI nAma rUpamulaku) – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja

After the last minute change in schedule at the ongoing Gokulashtami Series at Unnati centre, where Abhishek was to perform and was replaced with Saketharaman, I was in two mind to go for this concert.  This time he was there, setting the accoustics to his needs.  Concert started 15 min behind the stipulated start time ( lot of time went in setting the amplification settings right – a question mark).  Started with Darbar Varnam with his typical improvisation. Mayamalavagaula alapana was good , so was the violin return. The krithi was ok, but he excelled in the swaras that followed.  Tunai Purindarul was a great choice. Varamu ( shudha hindolam) was seldom found in concerts ( I remember the RTP Sanjay sang a cpouple of years back). He sang the kriti brilliantly with neraval and some interesting set of swara in multiple speed. Vara narada came in as filler with some more quickfire swara singing.

Sankarabharanam was taken up as main and with some outstanding alapana, done in two phases. Very slow and bhava laden build up with some memorable phrases adequately supported by Srikant gave an impressive start. The second phase had more of higher octave and ‘akara’ phrases. It was  very well executed. Srikanth’s return infact was short on both the occasions. Akshayalinga vibho was expectedly good. However, he had rather elaborate neraval, exploring the technical side too much,  loosing the aesthetics in the middle. On the verge of me getting bored, he switched back rather traditional style and ended it brilliantly. Swara had more TNS style kanakku with some good ounterplay by Srikanth and Ananth R Krishnan.

Tani avartanam was good. Anantha in general was pretty good. Ghatam was largely inaudible during the evening, but he too came up with some good play during tani avartanam. Post Tani, had an interesting alapana of rAgeshri, ( 7-8 min of alapana post main gave an impression of a pallavi in the offing) and a dasarnama ( haven’t heard this before), which he announced as iset to tune by one  Pallavi Arunkumar ( or so).  Decent concert yesterday by Abhishek at Indiranagar Sabha.

 

 

 

Abhishek Raghuram @ Odukathur Mutt, Kalotsav-2011, 20 Feb 2011

Vocal : Abhishek Raghuram

Violin : Akkarai Subbalakshmi

Mrudangam : Ananthakrishnan

Ganjira : Guruprasanna

List:

01   karuNimpa ( varNAm) – sahAna -   Thiruvottiyur Thyagayya ( O )

02  yOchanA – darbAr – Thyagaraja ( S )

03   mAra jananim AshrayE – nAtakapriya – N C Krishnamacharyulu ( A,N,S )

.        neraval @ ‘kaitabhAri hrit pITha vAsinim kAtyayanyAdi santhOshiNim’

.        swara @ ‘  nAtakapriyanutam..’

04   tatvameruga taramA – garuDha dhwani – thyagaraj ( A,S )

05   challarE rAmachandruni – Ahiri – Thyagaraja

06   RTP – kAnaDa – tisra triputa , 2 kaLai

.        pallavi line ‘ sItApatE nApai, nIkabhimAnamu lEdA’

.        pallavi in rAgamAlika kAnaDa, khamAs, dharmavati? , gAnamUrty, hamanAdam?

.        tani Avartanam

.        rAgamAlika swaras in kAnaDa, khamAs, dharmavati? , gAnamUrty, hamanAdam?

07   rAmachandruDitaDu raghuvIruDu – dwijAvanti – Annamacharya  ( O )

08   uLLavaru shivAlaya mADuvarayya – yamunA kalyANi? – Basavanna ( O )

09  bhujaga shAyinO – yadukula kAmbOji – Swathi Thirunal

A brilliant concet by Abhishek Raghuram and the team of youngsters.  I haven’t heard him for a while now, and all the new found stardom was justified by the performance he gave yesterday, which was highly energetic and power packed. Started (behind schedule again) with the  popular Sahana varnam rendered in traditional 2 speed, followed it up with darbar and some fast paced swaras upping the tempo.

First Alapana came in the form of nAtakapriya, keeping mere mortals like guessing. Mara Jananim Ashraye was new to me. He executed the kriti beautifully, be it the longish alapana , neraval or the cracking set of kalpana swaras.  Akkarai Subbalakshmi to, was brilliant here. GaruDadhwani was interesting. I have a feeling this is more a ‘scalar’ raga with not much scope of improvisation. He did a good job with the alapana , however the super fast swaras were sounding mere exercise with swara patterns at multiple speeds and octaves. It was good, though.

After a very emotive Ahiri ( with some unnecessary bhrigas ), he started the alapana of kAnaDa. Very long and detailed with some complicated phrases, however failing to create any aha moments, similarly replied by the violin in her turn. Pallavi was set to normal tala and an baes on the charanam of the popular khamas kriti by Mysore Vasudevacharya.  Pallavi followed an interesting ragamalika pattern, easing from one to the other effectively.  He indicated to the percussionist immediately after, without singing any swara. The percussion duo gave a spirited tani avartanam, hugely enjoyed by the audiene, noting from their response.

As he was continuing the pallavi singing, the organisers came into the happening wanting to start their usual speech. While the person presented gave an enthusiastic speech and praises, it was an interruption at a wrong moment.  However, before it took long, the concert continued from where it was let off with ragamalika swaras in the same sequence as pallavi. Abhishek himself would have added to the confusion, by allowing tani avartanam before the ragamalika swaras. The second interruption came in after this with the felicitation of artists and fresh round of speeches.

He concluded the concert with a couple of songs post this, before the yadukula kamboji mangalam.  On the whole it was a brilliant concert, with some superb teamwork on the stage.