Rare musical treat
MUKUNDAN SAMPATH
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Gayathri Girish captivates her audience by performing rare songs at the SICA concert.
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Photo: R. Shivaji Rao
Soothing vocals: Gayatri Girish.
Gayathri Girish sang at Ravindra Bharathi under the auspices of the South Indian Cultural Association (SICA) last Thursday. She began the concert with the Adi tala varnam in Shree Ragam, Sami Ninnekori.
Giving a brief sketch of Shanmukhapriya, she sang Muthuswamy Diskshitar’s Siddhi Vinayakam. She added some quick and fast paced swaras to build the tempo. Gayathri picked up Anandabhairavi as the first alapana of the evening. She showed good raga bhava and the overall effect was placid. She sang Marivere and chose not to sing the second speed kalpana swarams thereby giving in to the mood of the raga.
The next item was the uncommon Begada krithi of Thyagaraja, Lokavana Chathura. Though fast paced, this piece was rendered with feeling and brought out the rasa of the raga.
The sangathis in the Anupallavi were notable. This was followed by a rare song, Navarathnavilasam of Dikshitar in a rare raga of the same name, Navarthnavilasam. She sang Idathupadam thooki aadum in Khamas with a lot of verve.
Kalyani was the centre piece of the concert. Gayathri took up the alapana seriously and worked quite hard on it to give a detailed picture. Though her voice in the higher octaves seemed obviously strained, the overall effort turned out to be good. Mysore Sreekanth on the violin gave an excellent account of himself in his turn. She picked up the grand Kamalambam Navavarnam, Kamalambam Bhajare and rendered it with good sangathis.
She sang a detailed neraval in Manasa kalpitamaya and closed the piece with befitting kalpana swaras with her Nyasa in Panchamam deserving special mention.
The piece closed with a detailed but crunchy tani by the percussionists. It was high quality playing by the mridangam artiste Neyveli Skandasubramanyam and P. Srinivasagopalan’s splendid responses on the morsing matched it.
Irrakkam Varamal of Gopalakrishna Bharathi in Behag initiated the extended but enjoyable thukda section. This was sung in a suitably slow pace and with good feeling.
Next came, Indiranama Indariki in kalyana vasantham immediately followed by the Soordas bhajan popularised by T.N. Seshagopalan, Gopi Gopalalal.
This piece obviously had flashes of TNS, the guru of Gayathri. Next, the Periazhwar Pasuram, Anjana Vannanai was sung in Kaapi.
Gayathri sang an elaborate Vritham in Saveri, Tilang, Danyasi and Suruti to sing Sri Venkatagiri.
The concert concluded with the Sindubhairavi tillana of Oothukadu Venkatasubbayyer.
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