Vocal : Ramakrishnan Murthy
Violin : R K Sriramkumar
Mrudangam : K U Jayachandra Rao
Ganjira : Guruprasanna
List :
01 lEkanA ninnu – asAvEri – Thyagaraja ( O , S )
02 ninnE nera namminAnurA – pantuvarALi – Thyagaraja ( N,S )
neraval & swara @ ‘rAjillarAni tyAgarAja rAja rAghava’
03 marivErE gati evarammA – Anandabhairavi – Shyama Shasthri ( A, S )
04 vadAnyEshvaram bhajEham – dEvagAndhAri – Muthuswami Dikshitar ( A )
05 brOva bhAramA – bahudhAri – Thyagaraja
06 kSINamai tirugA – mukhAri – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S,T )
neraval & swara @ Edi jEsina jagannAthuDu shiramuna hrdayamuna vahinci‘
07 RTP – kApi – khaNDa tripuTa x 2 kaLai
pItAmbaradhara priya nAyikA, mAm pAtu(?) rAdhikA
rAgamAlika swaras in sAranga, nATa, suruTTi
08 kaNDudhanyanAdE – behAg – Kamalesha Vittala
09 viruttam ( cheDiyAy ) – sindhubhairavi
anri ulakam aLandAi – sindhubhairavi – Andal
10 mangaLam – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja
SLOkam ( mangaLam kOsalEndrAya) – madhyamAvati
Second concert in last 10 days from Sri Ramakrishnan murthy. This time with one of his guru accompanying him on violin. Despite my late arrival at home from travel and the tiredness of two days hectic physical activities, I decided to attend the concert braving the saturday evening traffic. It was worth all the trouble. Ramakrishnan Murthy presented another commendable concert at the Gayana Samaja for M A Narasimhachar Foundation.
Concert started 20-25 minutes behind schedule, The earlier performance was continuing as I entered the hall, bu Apoorva Krishna supported by N C Bharadwaj, both winners at the last Kalavanta competition. Ramakrishnan Murthy quickly launched into the asaveri kriti after humming the raga for a while. I can see varnam is now being skipped and the concerts are started with some big kritis. Asavei was good and the kalpana swaras that followed settled the onstage alignment perfectly. There was no hiccup through out the concert.
Pantuvarali kriti, not regularly heard came in soon with good amount of neraval singing and two speed kalpana swaras. I always like a pantuvarali or purvikalyani kriti upfront with neraval and swaras. It changes the overall concert feel to a different level. Aggressive neraval and swaras received equally aggressive percussion support, at time a bit too noisy. But that lifted the concert. A sedate anandabhairavi alapana came soon. It was a very very long time since I heard a god anandabhairavi alapana. Very appealing and emotive alapana from the singer was complimented by the master on violin. Marivere was no surprise , beautifully sung added with some good rounds of kalpana swaras at the lower speed.
Devagandhari alapana was ok. Somewhere I felt a tiredness in his voice, it wasn’t very clear at the higher octaves during this time. Despite his effort to bring some nice phrases in the alapana, I thought it wasn’t that great. But, he surprised here with singing vadanyeswaram bhajeham, sa I was preparing for kshitija ramanam to come. Haven’t heard this kriti many time before and hence it was very impressive. A quickfire bahudhari came in before main.
Mukhari alapana was fabulous. Typical to a long alapana he started off with the ultra slow, very moving phrases, slowly building the tempo. Top class alapana from Sriramkumar added to the overall impact. Kshinamai was awesome. Both in terms of the kriti presentation and the detailed long neraval and kalpana swaras. He started the neraval with ‘Edi jEsina jagannathudu shiramuna’ for a few rounds before extending it to the complete line and concluded the neraval with an awesome finish. Kalpana swaras followed a similar two speed pattern with some long culmination rounds at both the speeds. Mostly sung in sravalaghu , not many pattern oriented wizardry in his swara singing. The enthusiastic percussion duo played an impressive tani avartanam post main.
A short break for felicitation and thanks giving, before he started the kApi alapana for a short pallavi. Both alapana and the tanam were grand. Many aha and tch tch sounds across the hall, despite the depleting crowd. Alapana and Tanam took long time to conclude and hence pallavi was a bit shortened affair. Pallavi line was composed and structured by the musician on stage R K Sreeramkumar, as mentioned by the singer. Pallavi line was sung in two speeds followed with swaras in native raga and ragamalika swaras, as he did ten days ago at Nadasurabhi.
Post main largely a repeat of the nadasurabhi concert. The memory is still fresh and the audience are probably the same to a considerable extent. Kandu dhanyanade and the same viruttam in sindhu bhairavi followed the same pattern from Nadasurabhi concert, but he sang a thiruppavai instead of the devarnama here , before the closing the concert with the mangalam. In all, another wholesome concert with some memorable kritis.
Brain Drain 