Vocal : Shreekantham Nagendra Shastry
Vocal Support: Anoop Krishnan
Violin : Satyaprakash
Mrudangam : Anirudha Bhat
List:
01. SLOkam ( SukLAmbaradharam) – harikAmbOji
unDEdi rAmuDu – harikAmbOji – Thyagaraja ( N,S )
neraval & swara @ ‘tamasAdi guNa rahituDu‘
02. jAnaki ramaNa – suddha sImantini – Thyaharaja ( A,S )
03. manasA eTulO – malayamArutam – Thyagaraja ( A,S )
04. endendu ninna pAdavE – rAgamAlika ( mOhanam, nAtakurinji , nIlAmbari) – Purandara Dasa
05. kaNDa jUDumi – vAchaspati – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S,T )
neraval & swara @ ‘ sItAtO palki jUchinanta pulakAnkituDai’
06. ranganyAtakE bAranE anganA maNiyE ( jAvaLi) – chenchurutti – ?? ( O )
07. lAli lAliyani yuchEdarA – harikAmbOji- Thyagaraja
08. mangaLam srI rAmunaku – vasanta – Mysore Sadashiva Rao
mangaLam kOsalEndrAya – madhyamAvati
A fabulous concert. He is one artist I was planning to attend a live concert for a long time, and I realise the loss is mine after attending this concert.Everything he sang yesterday was top class. The alapana, the way he choose and presented neraval lines, the appropriate splitting of the words, the very innovative singing of swara and its placement, the selection of ragam and the amount of detailing he gave to each of them were showing his class.
The concert hall was empty when we reached, with 7-8 people wandering about. Anoop remarked that his Guru joked about this saying only Sree Ramachandra will be there to listen apart from the artists. However, the hall gradually filled in with around 60-70 people as the concert progressed. The downpour helped in this cause as those who came in did not leave half way through the concert.
He started the evenings proceedings with the harikamboji kriti, one not often heard in the concert circuit. The overall amplification in the hall took a while to stabilise, after few corrections, as the clarity was missing. But it improved towards the neraval and swara. Surprise pack of the evening was the alapana of sudha simantini. I was a bit skeptical about the violinist to reproduce the same brilliance. I noticed a reluctance in him, but a nudge from Sastry prompted him to do his bit. He did a commendable job. The kriti was preceded with few rounds of kalpana swaras.
Malayamarutam alapana was built in short phrases, making time for the violin to replicate the same. The entire alapana progressed through shortish phrases, which was pretty nice. As expected it was manasa etulo, and against my wish, there was no neraval at ‘kalilo rAjasa’, but he sand an elaborate round of swara alternating with his sishya on stage. A dasar pada in ragamalika came in before the main. Vachaspati alapana was grand, and he gave equal amount of time to Anoop to complete the second part of the alapana, which he did commendably. The guru gave him ample chances during the concert ( every neraval and swara were alternating between them) and regularly appreciated him. Satyaprakash, who did some fantastic accompaniment for the evening gave another brilliant alapana for vachaspati. It had to be kanda judumi, and the kriti was nice. Interestingly, instead of singing neraval at ‘alanADu’, he chose to sing at ‘sItAto palki’, which was very well thought out ( insted of palki jucinanta’ to give a complete meaning) and was outstanding. Befitting the neraval , kalpana swara was equally brilliant. However, as Keerthi noticed, the entire concert had kalpana swara sang at the middle or higher tempo.
Anirudha Bhat who was apt in his percussion through out the concert, gave a good tani avartanam. Post main had a beautiful javali in chenchurutti. The short , one minute, raga alapana he sang before the javali was mesmerising. Another not heard kriti ( to me) of thyagaraja came before the conclusion of the concert with the Mysore SadashivaRao’s mangalam. Brilliant concert.
Brain Drain 