Nirmala Sundararajan revels in the familiar
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Discipline and training can set the tone for a vocal recital.
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Nirmala Sundararajan proved to be a tradition-bound artiste, both in her style of rendition and in her method of structuring concert pattern and the presentation. So familiar are her movements in raga expansion and swara prasthara, that they sound like disciplined lessons.
All these traits were revealed in her concert organised by the South Indian Cultural Association (SICA), last week at Ravindra Bharati. Nirmala, who is an `A' grade Carnatic vocalist was quite at home in her concert from the start. The influence on her of different gurus she learned under - Ramnad Krishnan, P. N. Raghava Rao, T. Mukta and T. M. Thyagarajan - shaped her into a well-informed performer. Nirmala set herself well in this concert for SICA, right with her opening Kalyani ata tala varnam.
She revealed pleasing voice with reasonable range. She was in the company of Poorna Vaidyanathan on violin, P. V. Kamaraju on mridangam and Srinivasa Gopalan on morsing, who too proved a good combination in this opening exercise. Then the compositions that were presented by Nirmala carried varied appeal. Of them Deva Deva Kalayami, a composition of Swathi Thirunal in Mayamalava Gowla, sounded quite a refreshing number. She took good time for this by adding an expansive nereval and crisp swara Prasthara, enhancing the appeal of the number. She then rendered a well-set Tamil kirtana in Athana. She took up Sriranjani as first raga delineation and went for the delineation. She presented Bhuvini Dasudani in this. The melody shaped up well and the kriti rendition too was pleasant. She then gave more time for Varali delineation. She sang Seshachala Nayakam of Dikshitar in this raga. After rendering Intakante Kavalena in Kannada, Nirmala took up Kambhoji as her main effort of the concert. The violinist Poorna gave brief version of the raga. Nirmala's choice composition for this raga was tO Rangasayi.
The rendition was marked by her expressive nereval accentuating the beauty of the charanam she chose to do that. And the breezy spell of nereval followed by exercising swaras, and the impressive Tani avartanam between mridangam and morsing, added to the appeal.
GS
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