More of a good thing
VENKATESAN SRIKANTH
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It rained Carnatic music in the Capital.
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GREAT POTENTIAL Young vocalists at the Gayathri Fine Arts presentation.
The memories of the Thyagaraja Music Festival organised by Sree Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha were still fresh when other equally pleasant events took place. Noida, Carnatica, a Chennai-based organisation, marked its Delhi Chapter's second anniversary with a festival at the Andhra Pradesh Bhavan, where Kalyanapuram Aravamudan presented a Sangeetha Upanyasam on the Sundara Kandam. Aravamudan brought out his wide knowledge on the subject as well as his musical talents.
K.N. Shashikiran and Chitravina P. Ganesh, popularly know as the Carnatica brothers, also gave an impressive concert. A scintillating alap of the raga Malayamarutam by Shashikiran was followed by Tyagaraja's "Manasa Etulortune" and a mature handling of Dikshitar's Navagraha kriti, "Devakaram Sanaiswaram" in raga Yedukulakamboji, including a fine alap by Ganesh.
Elsewhere, at the Sankara Vidya Kendra, Vasant Vihar, the Akhila Bharatha Sadhu Samajam featured Visaka Hari in a Carnatic music concert and a musical discourse. The highlight of her concert was a ragam-taanam-pallavi in the raga Brindavana Sarang, with some ragamalika swaraprastaras towards the end. Delhi's Sudha Raghuraman, roped in to fill the scheduled slot of the indisposed O.S. Thiagarajan, presented an impressive Tyagaraja kriti, "Appa Ramabhakti' in Pantuvarali.
Festive Noida
Neighbouring Noida was no less festive. Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam Charitable Trust, Noida, organised Tyagaraja Day at its recently consecrated Sri Adi Sankaracharya Mandir (Sankara Mutt). Vasanthi Krishna Rao led the group singing of Pancharatna kritis of Tyagaraja. Rasikas were delighted with the quality of her renderings. Earlier, the veteran thoughtfully started off by presenting a composition "Shankaracharya" in raga Shankarabharanam, apart from a melodious "Bagayanayya" in the raga Chandrajyoti, towards the end.
At the India International Centre, vocalist R. Suryaprakash was too talkative. Though his intention was to announce the names of the ragas and composers, Suryaprakash went a step further, explaining how and what improvisations (alap, niraval, and swaraprastara) he would be making. When actions speak aloud, one failed to understand the need to speak aloud in words. Or, was he grossly underestimating the knowledge of the rasikas? Among the songs he presented, Papanasam Sivan's "Ma Ramanan" in Hindolam, Tyagaraja's "Sarasa Sama Dana", in the raga Kapi Narayani and Dikshitar's "Maragadavalli" in the raga Kamboji were appealing, though one felt he could have elaborated a little more while presenting the Kamboji alap.
Double bill
Yet another concert, organised by Gayathri Fine Arts, featured Rashmi Ramesh and Divya Rajan (disciple of Vasantha Sundaram). These concerts were platforms provided by Gayathri Fine Arts to bring out the talents after completion of their two-year scholarship for advanced training in Carnatic music, received from the organisation. The youngsters presented various kritis of Tamil composers. While the efforts of this organisation in this direction deserve to be lauded, these youngsters should now make good use of the springboard provided. With their tremendous potential, they should now concentrate more on every aspect of concert presentation, including the manodharma aspects, which should flow from within.
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