A sound of devotion
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Chennai-based Gayatri Girish impressed the audience with her technical prowess and array of songs.
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Devout Gayatri Girish performed recently at the annual festival of Sahasranama Parayana
Soaked in melody and devotion, young Carnatic vocalist Gayatri Girish’s soulful rendering of devotional songs in New Delhi recently created a serene atmosphere.
Sri Vishnu Sahasranama Satsangam, R.K. Puram, and Sri Shankara Vidya Kendra, Vasant Vihar, jointly organised a programme of devotional songs on Independence Day at the latter’s auditorium in South Delhi.
The occasion was the annual festival of Sahasranama Parayana, Deepa Pooja and Homa offering to Goddess Lalitha.
The South Indian system of classical music is essentially bhakti (or God-love) oriented. Many saints and seers preceding the great Carnatic music Trinity of Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri, and succeeding it, have poured out their hearts in praise of different gods in the Hindu pantheon, in their numerous creations.
Any skilled practitioner of Carnatic music is, therefore, well equipped with musical compositions, composed in South Indian languages and Sanskrit, to offer a fairly long performance of devotional songs.
Gayatri Girish did well to present such a recital based on works of authors from Andal to Ambujam Krishna across an entire range of time and space.
Prayerful spirit
Her vocalism induced gentle piety and tranquillity, based as it was on pleasantness and non-stridency.
Her clear enunciation of lyrics made for rewarding listening. She delighted her modest audience with her interpretation of about a dozen-and-a-half songs in an involved, prayerful spirit.
Trained earlier by Vidvan Vaigai Gnanaskandan, Gayatri is now under the wing of leading concert vocalist Madurai T.N. Seshagopalan. The programme started with the time-tested invocation to Lord Ganapati, “Vatapi Ganapatim bhaje”, a kriti of Muthuswami Dikshitar in raga Hamsadhwani.
Gayatri went on to present one impressive number after another in a steady stream of varying moods of praise, quiet prayer and entreaty to the Almighty.
They included such popular pieces as Annamacharya’s “Srimannarayana” in raga Bauli, “Aadadu asangadu” in raga Madhyamavati and “Swagatam Krishna” in raga Mohanam of Ottukkadu Venkatakavi, Tyagaraja’s “Ni dayarada” in raga Vasanta Bhairavi and Papanasam Sivan’s “Parvatinayakane” in raga Shanmukhapriya.
Quite appropriate to the occasion was her selection of Andal’s Tiruppavai in raga Nattai “Margazhittingal”, early on in the recital. Muthuswami Dikshtar’s “Anandanatanaprakasam” in raga Kedaram and “Akhilandeswari” in raga Dvijavanti, besides Syama Sastri’s “Nannu brova Lalita” in raga Lalita added weight to her renderings.
Wisely, the vocalist avoided raga alapanas for the pieces and opted for brief raga preludes to the Andal Tiruppavai through a viruttam clothed in Nattai and a shloka in Lalita for the Syama Sastri kriti.
Gayatri then essayed raga Todi in the only alapana of some length in the performance, bringing out its salient features aesthetically, and followed it up with the Dikshitar masterpiece “Sri Krishnam bhaja”.
Skipping the conventional niraval, she extended the song with a brief session of swaraprastara in two speeds, culminating in a well structured “kuraippu” sequence. Among the winsome tail pieces in the recital were Subramania Bharati’s popular ragamalika “Chinnan chirukiliye”, Gopalakrishna Bharati’s “Irakkam varamal” in raga Behag and the Purandaradasa Devarnama “Tamburimittidava” in raga Sindhu Bhairavi. Gayatri, who was cheered after each song, drew loud applause from the audience for her version of the Kalki Krishnamurthy piece “Katrinile varum gitam” and Rajaji’s song “Kuraionrum illai”. Both songs owe their popularity to the late M.S. Subbulakshmi.
The vocalist was well supported by her team of accompanists drawn from the Capital, K.L.N. Sastri on the violin, Kumbakonam N. Padmanabhan on the mridangam and K. Ramamurthi on the ghatam. Sastri’s raga versions were pithy, while the percussion duo came up with an engaging tani avartanam in the Todi raga .
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