Bharat Sundar @ Unnati, Gokulashtami Series, 05 Aug 2017

Vocal : Bharat Sundar

Violin : M R Gopinath

Mrudangam : Neyveli Skandasubramanian

Ghatam : H Sivaramakrishnan

List

01. varNam – AbhOgi

02 sAmaja varadA nIku – shuddha sAvEri – Ramanathapuram Srinivasa Iyengar ( S )

03 bAlakrSNan pAdamalar – dhanyAsi – Papanasam Sivan ( A,N,S )

neraval @ ‘nIlamukil pOl azhakan’  Swaras @ ‘varaguNa bAlakrSNan’

04 ninne nammitinayyA – simhEndramadhyamam – Mysore Vasudevachar ( N,S )

neravan&swara @ ‘pannagEndra shayana, pannagAri vAhana’

05 nambi kettevar evarayya – hindOLam – Papanasam Sivan ( A )

06 challarE rAmachandruni – Ahiri – Thyagaraja ( O )

07 vandE sadA padmanAbham – navarasa kannaDa – Swathi Thirunal ( S )

08 kAmAkSi varalakSmi – bilahari – Dikshitar ( A,N,S,T )

neraval & swara @ ‘kAmakalE vimalE karakamalE kAmakOTi bilaharinuta kamalE’

09 nI mATalE mAyanurA ( javaLi) – pUrvikalyANi – Pattabhiramayya

10 viruttam ( kArAyavaNNa maNivaNNA kaNNA) – brindavana sarang,varLAi,khamAs,mAND – Ramalinga Swami

muraLIdhara gOpAla – mAND – Periyasami Tooran

11 jamunA kinArE pyArE (bhajan) – mishra pIlu – Swathi Thirunal

12 thillAna ( tOm tOm tadara tadaradAni ) – pUrNachandrika – Ramanathapuram Srinivasa Iyengar

13 tirupugazh ( charana kamalAlayathai) – shubha pantuvarALi

14 mangaLam – saurAStram/madhyamAvati – Thyagaraja

shLOkam ( mangaLam kOsalEndrAya) – madhyamAvati

Brilliant concert by the young vidvan. Very refreshing set of ragas and compositions. Nice mix and variety in all aspect. He sang each of them to some good impact. Classy hindOLam and bilahari alapana. Impressive takes on dhanyAsi alapana, albeit to a lesser attractiveness. Fabulous neraval for bilahari and simhendra madhyamam. However, not so great for dhanyasi, probably he chose a wrong place. Brilliant swara singing through out, especially with faster tempo , which looks like his forte.  Nice picks of Ahiri and navarasa kannada compositions.

Post main was very well thought through and delivered. The days when post main is usually concluded with two or three pieces with a customary devarnama, it is encouraging to see young vidvans like Bharat Sundar is giving it some considerations. The jAvaLi, viruttam, bhajan and tirupugazh were very well sung. Beautiful stuff.

The accompanying artists, did a fabulous job, especially Sri Neyveli Skandasubramanian. M R Gopinath was very good in his returns, especially the bilahari alapana. Tani Avartanam was good, with mrudangam taking the lion’s share of the proceedings.

 

T M Krishna @Unnati Center, Gokulashtami Festival 06 Aug 2016

Vocal : T M Krishna

Violin : H K Venkatram

Mrudangam : Arun Prakash

Ganjira : Anirudh Athreya

List:

01 sarasa sAmadAna – kApi nArAyani – Thyagaraja (O,N,S)

neraval @ ‘hitavu mAtalentO bhAgabalkitivi’

02 yArukkAkilum bhayamA – bEgaDa – Subbarama Iyer? ( A,S )

03 vallabha nAyakasya – bEgaDa – Dikshitar ( Tanam, S)

04 chANarO ee mOhamu – khamAs – Ramanathapuram Srinivasa Iyengar ( O )

05 RTP – mukhAri – khaNDa tripuTa x 2 Kalai , 1.5 eduppu

pallavi line ‘ kAdalippOm nAm anaivarum ‘aridAna?’ manita vAzhvai’

pallavi in rAgamAlika kIravANi, shrI,nAyaki, sahAna, sindhubhairavi

No swaras

tani Avartanam

06 cherarAvadEmirA – rItigauLa – Thyagaraja ( A )

07 hE gOvind. hE gOpAl. – kAmbOji – Surdas

08 pagh gunghurU rE (mIrA bhajan) – pIlu

Hmm.. What would you call the listener (me,in this case) who is confused between Bhairavi and Mukhari ? My friend AG came with an apt answer; Bhairavi+Mukhari = Bhikhari.

MukhAri, I said to myself, as soon as he started the alapana. Wait, am I hearing bhairavi ? No, there is clear mukhari phrases. Oh, tanam is sounding bhairavi. Could this be mAnji, no way. No, it is mukhari. Or should we wait for H K Venkatram to come to our rescue when his turn comes. Oh,no. There wasn’t a violin turn. Krishna is starting the pallavi. Let me freeze it on mukhari.

I am not the only one confused. The organiser’s mail came in the morning, which announced the pallavi is in bhairavi. Was I wrong then. Hold on, what is the second mail all about. Ah, they have corrected it. It now says, mukhari. Stop it Jayan, no more debate. Mukhari it is.

A couple of years back Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan gave a concert at Nadasurabhi on Allied ragas. And to his merit and credit,he chose to sing the pallavi in bhairavi+mukhari. I had no confusion then, between bhairavi and mukhari. Probably, it wasn’t my day. Or one should blame MDR, whose ‘eLAvatAram’ was playing in my car for the entire day.

This summarises my evening yesterday. The confusion did not end there. Ask about the Surdas bhajan. I am for kAmbOji, or was it harikAmbOji ? Did I hear traces of khamAs as he twisted the corners of the brief alap he did before the song?

Pardon me. I am lost. The blame is entirely and squarely on me. Krishna started majestically with a short kapi narayani sketch. Slightly stretched the neraval at hitavu matalento, but was top class, which he did alone, without a reciprocation from violin. However, the kalpana swaras was done by H K Venkatram, after a brisk start from Krishna.

Begada alapana started with some exquisite phrases, and this time he did announce it as begada to those who were looking perplexed. After the impressive start, he mostly did long slow phrases in middle and upper octaves. Yarukkakilum bhayama, popular in the bharatanatyam circuit was sung very leisurely, apt for a dance performance, way. Added to it a few rounds of lovely swaras. Some great great rounds in the upper octaves. Begada isn’t over. After mulling for a while, he started tAnam, mumbled ‘same one’ as he started. Dikshitar’s masterpiece was sung in much pleasing tempo followed with some faster rounds of kalpana swaras.

Khamas jAvali was to follow. This time pronouncing it as ‘chANarO’ with a clear ‘chh’ syllable to start. I have been listening to this as ‘jANarO’ for a long time, including that of Krishna. Probably a correction from his side. Interestingly, the karnatik.com site has the lyrics as ‘sAnarO’. Ramesh Swamy spoke after this and was followed by few felicitations to the new Magsaysay winner.

It is now the pallavi started. I have said enough about this. There was no swaras, but he sang the pallavi line in ragamalika. Looked like he got hooked on to sindhu bhairavi as he elaborated it for a while. There was no trikalam too, as he pointed to Arun Prakash for tani avartanam. Arun Prakash and Anirudh started with very slow pattern around the time division, doubling up as it progressed to greater speed. Except for some fabulous pattern he played towards the end, by and large it wasn’t very appealing.  There was  a large exodus post the tani avartanam, people seems to have taken the advise of Ramesh Swamy well, delaying the departure post tani.

HK Venkatram played a very nice alapana in reetigaula and TMK added to the impact with an impressive cheraravadEmirA, adorned with sangatis after sangatis of the pallavi line. This definitely was beautiful. The Surdas bhajan, spoke above, and a meerabhajan concluded the concert.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about this concert. It was brilliant at patches and was confusing and sluggish at places. I’ve heard better concerts of his.

 

 

S Sowmya , Gokulashtami Series, Unnati Centre, 10 Aug 2014

Vocal : S Sowmya

Violin : R K Sriramkumar

Mrudangam : J Vaidyanathan

Ganjira : anirudh Athreya

Song list :

01. chalamEla ( varNam) – nAtakurinji – Rangaswamy Pillai ( S )

02.  bAlakrishNan pAdamalar – dhanyAsi – Papanasam Sivan ( S )

03.  Ela nI dayarADu – aThANa – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S )

neraval & swara @ ‘ rArA dEvAdidEvA , rArA mahAnubhAva ‘

04.  bhOgindra shAyinam – kuntaLavarALi – Swathi thirunal

05. O jagadambA -Anandabhairavi – Shyama Shasthri ( A,S )

06.  brOva bhAramA – bahudhAri – Thyagaraja ( S )

07.  hannu bandidE – hindOLam – Purandara Dasa

08. RTP – harikAmbOji – khaNDa tripuTa x 2 kaLai , started at 1.5 ( 3rd beat) after samam

pallavi line ‘ srIkrishNam bhaja tE sadA, unnata padavi vrjarE manasA ‘

rAgamAlika swaras in ‘rEvati, ?, surutti

tani Avartanam

09.  srI mAdhava vAsudEva – behAg – Papanasam Sivan

10. bhajarE yadunAtham – pIlu – Sadashiva Brahmendra

11. thillAna ( tAm tAm udanitOm tananam) – khamAs – Patnam Subramanya Iyer

12. mangaLam – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja

Another top quality concert at the series at Unnati. S Sowmya and the team presented a very well coordinated concert yesterday. A cleverly selected kritis on the occasion of Gokulashtami and a rather surprising pallavi are some of the highlights of the evening. All the participants played very well and I am particularly impressed with young Anirudh Athreya on the Ganjira. She sang kalpana swaras for almost all the kritis until the main, each of them delivered with class.

Started 10 mins late on a Sunday evening, she started off with the natakurinji varnam adding a few rounds of swaras. I’m listening to Balakrishnan pAdamalar after a long time, and she sang the swaras pretty well. Athana was the first alapana and she started off with a bang ( many appreciative tch tch around) and progressed nicely. RKSK did one better in his turn taking off from where she left. An interesting neraval ar rA rA devadideva , was fabulous. Another elaborate Anandabhairavi alapana came soon after a filler. It was ok, not something that would blew me away. O jagadamba was good, and so was the ultra slow kalpana swaras that followed. Probably to shift the tempo she quickly sang an super fast bahudhari and an even faster fireworks of swaras. It was very impressive, nonetheless. Another slow devarnama followed soon after.

Harikamboji alapana was grand. I am never good at identifying with this, but after a few internal negotiations, I settled at the right place. Expecting a ‘dinaMaNi vamsha’, I was a bit surprised when she started her tAnam. There hadn’t been many instances of a pallavi in harikAmbOji, an MDR and one from Chittoor Subramanya Pillai are two that I’ve heard of. Tanam was good. Pallavi was cleverly coined, adding the ‘organiser’ mudra incorporated. Brilliant trikalam  for an intrinsic ‘eduppu’ was executed to perfection by all. There was no elaborated ragamalika swaras. She did a sweeping one stretch swaras in the final round briefly shifting from revati to surutti ( one more in the middle) and handed over the reign to the percussion. J Vaidyanathan and Anirudh Athreya was top class in accompanying. The duo played out a decent tani with no noisy riots.

Post main had a couple of short songs and a khamas thillana. Nothing to talk home about. A very enjoyable concert and a bonus surprise of the harikamboji pallavi.

 

U Shrinivas, Mandolin – Gouklashtami Series, Unnati, 09 Aug 2014

Mandolin : U Shrinivas

Violin : H K Venkatram

Mrudangam : Srimushnam Rajarao

Ghatam : Giridhar Udupa

List:

01. chalamEla (varNam) – darbAr – Thiruvottiyur Thyagayya

02.  bhajamAnasa vighnEshwaram – bahudhAri – Tulasivanam ( O,S )

03.  kAmAkshi (swarajati) – bhairavi – Shyama Shasthri

04. parandhAmavati – dharmavathi – Dikshitar ( A,S )

05. telisirAma – pUrNachandrika – Thyagaraja ( S )

06.  nagumOmu – AbhEri – Thyagaraja

07. RTP – kalyANi, kIravANi, malayamArutam – chaturashra tripuTa , 2 kaLai

tani Avartanam

08.  thIrAtha viLayAttu piLLai – rAgamAlika – Subramanya Bharati

09.  bhajan – ?

10. bArO krishNayya – rAgamAlika – Kanaka Dasa

11. thillAna – rEvati – Lalgudi jayaraman

12. mangaLam – saurAshtram , madhyamAvati – Thyagaraja

After missing the first week, yesterday was my first concert at this series at Unnati. As expected, Mandolin Shrinivas gave his customery high standard concert with some spirited support from the accompanying artists, especially veteran Srimushnam Rajarao. Concert progressed in a typical style with varnam , ganesha kriti pattern. Bahudhari kalpana swaras very very apt with all the constituents of the evening gelled well. A moving bhairavi swarajati came in before the first alapana of the day in dharmavathi. The kriti – I am pinning it for ‘parandhamavati’ against bhajanaseya rAda for both the kritis are set to ‘roopakam’ – was beautifully played, so was the short kalpana swara that followed. Two short kritis, were marvellous. Purnachandrika with its swaras and nagumOmu with some mesmerising sangatis he played with Srimushnam Rajarao.

He announced the main pallavi for the evening, in the form of kalyani, keeravani and malayamarutham. An interesting combination to choose. A rasika, landed on the stage at this juncture with a huge list of her preferences, causing some jovial moment. Acknowledging her, he said there has to be another concert to fulfill al her requests, but for time being he would like to continue with the pallavi.

The three raga alapana, from one to the next with violin taking turns was decent. Few catchy phrases with the fast paced sancharas was impressive. Venkatram was much more sedate and appealing, especially his keeravani and malayamarutam. There was no TNS style mixing or cross combination of alapana. Tanam sequenced in the reverse order with malayamarutam leading the fare. Here, he did some nice progression from one to the other. Overall tanam from both the instruments was very good with both receiving ample appreciation from the audience. He did not ‘sing’ or announce the pallavi line, but from the structure, it is evidently one of the popular ones, set to adi talam in 2 kalai. Ragamalika swara followed the same pattern not expanding beyond the pallavi ragas.

What followed was a scintillating tani avartanam. Despite the higher decibel levels, it was an awesome fare. The veteran percussionist leading the charge and Giridhar Udupa measuring upto every challenges thrown at him. There was an outstanding interplay towards the end, with one taking the lead while the other played the ‘takadhimi’ on his instrument. The duo received a standing ovation in the end for their outstanding contribution.

Post main, again had the known set of kritis. Baro Krishnayya, was one to pick for if I had to make a choice from the list. The concert concluded with a revathi thillana before the mangalam. Concert of an expected level from Shrinivas , with an exceptional support from Srimishnam rajarao.

 

R Suryaprakash @ Unnati Centre, 6th Oct 2013

Vocal : R Suryaprakash

Violin : C N Srinivasamurthy

Mrudangam : T S Sundaresan

List:

01.vanajAksha ninnE kOri ( varNam) – rItigauLa – Veena Kuppaiyer

02. gaNanAthanE guNabOdhanE – sAranga – Periyasami Thooran  ( O,S )

03. jAlandhara supIThasthitE- valaji – Muthaiah Bhagavathar ( A,N)

neraval @ ‘navashakti swarUpiNi’

04. ranganAyakam bhAvayE – nAyaki – Dikshitar ( Short sketch)

05. sEviykka vENDum ayyA – AndOLika – Pananasam Sivan ( S )

06. nimma bhAgya doDDadO namma bhAgya doDDadO – aThANa – Purandara Dasa ( A )

07.  nItu charaNa pankajamulE – kalyANi – Pallavi Gopala Iyer ( A,N,S,T )

neraval & Swara @ ‘O jagajjanani manOnmaNi OmkAra rUpiNi kalyANi’

08. RTP – brindAvani – trisra triputa (purngam in khada nadai, uttarangam in chatusra nadai)

pallavi line ‘ unnata venkaTa ramaNa gOvindA, pannaga shayana mukundA’

ragamalika swaras in ‘brindAvani, behAg, rEvathi’

09. varugalAmO ayya – mAnji – Gopalakrishna Bharathi

10. veLLAi tAmarai – bhImpLAs – Subramanya Bharathi

11. SLOkam ( yOgindrANAm. ) – ??, Sivaranjani, sindhubhairavi

venkaTAchala nilayam – sindhubhairavi – Purandara Dasa

12. tirupugazh – hamsAnandi

13. mangaLam – saurAshtram , surutti – Thyagaraja

To a sparse audience in the majestic hall at the Unnati Center, Sri Suryaprakash presented a extremely pleasing and beautifully conceived and presented concert. It was sad to see such a fine music is received by only a few ears for a musician of such status. However those attended and listened were rewarded by a classy , enriching music. He might not command the aura of some of the ‘performing’ musicians on the stage, and might not have the exaggerating mannerisms of an all encompassing stage artist, but his music grows into you with its simplicity and its trueness to the fundamentals. One will not experience the adrenalin rush, or any innovations in the presentation to talk about, but do experience the refreshing calmness in the concert.

Concert started 15 mins late from the stipulated time ( possibly due to the delayed arrival of the violin accompaniment) with the Reetigaula varnam. Saranga was a nice choice for the Ganesha kriti, which was presented with few rounds of kalpana swaras. First detailed alapana was in Valaji and ‘jAlandhara’ was the only choice. He did a detailed neraval, and did not sing any swaras. The neraval line itself was rather too short and did not give a feeling of completeness.

Very emotive nAyaki, not so impressive andOLika kriti ( I was almost frowning my face, but he brought this back with some brilliant kalpana swaras) and an interesting devarnama in aThANa came in before the main. Swaras of Andolika and the short alapana of athana were pretty nice.

Kalyani was main ( frown again? No..) with some classy alapana, long, beautifully build up and developed in the familiar passages and phrases. A feat reproduced ( including the arohana/avarohana phrase) by the violin artist. The kriti chosen was very interesting. I was prepared for one of the ‘navarathri’ specials, but he decided to go for one of the not often heard kritis in the concerts. The kriti and the long neraval that came in were top class. He probably rushed through a bit in the kalpana swaras. Tani avartanam by Sundaresan was apt, adding on to is very supportive percussion during the concert.

Pallavi was in the offing. Both alapana and tanam ( with percussion joining in) was very good. Pallavi was pretty complicated with different nadai for ‘purvangam’ and ‘uttarangam’. The team executed the nadai complexities with ease, including the trikalam. Kalpana swaras were alternated between Khanda Nadai and chatusra nadai. No much importance to the ragamalika swaras, however the revathi swaras were pretty nice.

Post pallavi had a slew of short pieces. The ragamalika slokam and the sindhubhairavi kriti of Purandara Dasa were notable among them. A tirupugazh and the mangalam concluded the evening. Very well executed concert by Suryaprakash and the team.