Vocal : Padma Sugavanam
Violin : Mathur Srinidhi
Mrudangam : R S R Srikanth
Ganjira : A S N Murthy
List:
01 ??sarasijanAbha (varNAm) – ??mAyAmALavagauLa – Swathi Thirunal
(reached towards the end, I could be wrong)
02 shrI mahAgaNapatE shrI vallabhApatE – AbhOgi – N S Ramachandran ( N,S )
neraval & swara @ ‘tAmarasa daLanEtra tAmasa timira nEtra’
03 vENugAna lOluni – kEdAragauLa – Thyagaraja ( A )
04 EdayyA gati – chalanAta – Koteeswara Iyer
05 ninnE nammitinayya – simhEndramadhyamam – Mysore Vasudevachar ( A,N,S )
neraval & swara @ ‘pannagEndra shayanA, pannagAri vAhana’
06 shrIkanta nIyada – bhavapriya – Thyagaraja
07 RTP – hamsavinOdini – chaturashra triputa x 2 kaLai , +1 ( 2 akSara) eduppu
pallavi line ‘ nigama sudhA vinOdini, nIrajadaLa lOcani sadA-‘
rAgamAlika swaras in ‘ varALi , sAma, sAvEri, pUrvikalyAni’
07b. tani Avartanam
08 mOsa jEsEnE (jAvaLi) – sindhubhairavi – ?? ( O )
09 mareya bEDa manavE – behAg – Purandara Dasa (O )
10 mangaLam – saurAStram – Thyagaraja
I missed her concert a couple weeks ago at Pranava Arts. When the announcement of change of the main artist came from the organisers, I decided to make a point to attend. Listening to her for the first time. I reached the venue as she was concluding the varnam.
What I found interesting is her selection of ragas and the compositions. Nice mix of composers, tala and tempo. Another impressive attempt with hamsavinodini as pallavi. I also found her grip on laya impeccable, especially during kalpana swaras where she did some fabulous stuff. The concert itself had a slow start, the spice was missing initially. It was from the simhendramadhyamam onward the concert elevated to the top gear. It was brilliant from there.
She sang a nice neraval for Abhogi kriti and had some elaborate swara patterns to end, giving us the glimpses of what is her mettle, the next couple of the songs weren’t great. Kedaragaula alapana wasn’t anything to write home about. Even the kriti did not really move me, despite being one of my favourite.
Simhendramadhyamam alapana was longer, lot of fast bhriga laden phrases to some good effect. I liked them, but some of the upper octave takes weren’t very pleasing. All my cribs end here. The kriti, classy neraval at pannagendra shayana, and the brilliant kalpana swaras that followed were the high point of the evening. I think, it was here, the rest of the artists on stage jelled together and found cohesiveness. She did some tremendous swara patterns here, with some improved percussion support.
By now, the change was visible, more at ease and confident. A energetic bhavapriya was sung before the main. A pallavi was in the offing, but hamsavinodini wasn’t one expected. Balamuralikrishna’s famous pallavi was the reference and she did announce that the pallavi was indeed composed by the legendary artist, with very clever padakSara usage. Tow phase alapana was very good. Tanam was even better. Pallavi neraval was good with very well executed trikalam. The percussion here ( and while following the violin) wasn’t upto the mark, as I found something amiss. Ragamalika swaras were good too, not sure if they too follow the ‘swarakSra’ pattern. I need to check.
Taniavartanam was very good. The percussion had their moments, they followed the singing pretty well except a few places. ASN Murthy produced some awesome music from the instrument. Srinidhi was the first to get into the groove, his alapana of kedaragaula and simhendramadhyamam were good, even though the volume output was low and was hardly audible against the high shruti sound.
Post main was again wasn’t great. A rarely heard javali and a customary ( sorry to say this) devarnama before mangalam. But, that has been my perennial complaint. I always liked artists who give some focus to this section of the concert.
Vid. Padma Sugavanam is having a busy month in Bangalore in March. I’m sure we will hear many more concerts of her in Bangalore in the months and years to come.
Brain Drain 