AndyMusicBlog-thodi

Sumitra Nitin @ Music Academy She is the grand daughter of old time veteran Anantalakshmi Sadagopan.I've listened to a few recordings of Smt. Sadagopan and she had a sweet yet powerful voice. Her granddaughter lacks the latter. She was singing without any shruti alignment all the while.(I hope she had a bad throat day and hence was singing off key;thats no excuse as one can sing at a lower pitch and remain aligned to Shruti. ) 1.) Ganapate - Kalyani - Dikshithar - Adi 2.) Ritigowla - walked out to pick some more CDs and books 3.) Kamboji - O Rangashayee - Violin Alapanai was well played. Abhishek Raghuram @Music Academy with Mysore Srikanth (Violin) and A. Anand (Mridangam) Had read a few good reviews about his and was keen on attending the same. Abhishek has a good voice - very pliable and sweet yet powerful and with a good range. (Reminded me of Musiri's voice at first hearing but later realized its more like Unnikrishnan's voice, the main difference being Unni's is ...

As we waited outside to reserve good seats for the Sanjay concert, the salesperson at Charsur Digital Works stall whom I had met at Bangalore more than an year back recognized me and told me to avail of their offer of obtaining the full set of their CDs on an Ipod for Rs. 37500 (I had purchased a few Paddhathi CDs last year at Koramangala from this person and I cribbed about their not giving enough discounts this time at the same venue despite being a regular purchaser of their CDs. They have a good collection but their CDs are over-priced.) Spotted a MAmi who looked exactly like Smt. Vedavalli in the audience. Vinod nicknamed her Bhedavalli - the graha Bheda version of Vedavalli :-) and we had a hearty laugh. Sanjay Subrahmanyan began his concert at 6.30 to a packed audience. He was accompanied by Nagai Muralidharan (Violin) , Guruvayur Dorai (Mridangam) and E.M. Subramaniam (Ghatam) 1.) Maguva - Ata tala Varnam in Narayanagowla 2.) Kamalamba Bhajare - Ananda Bhairavi, Dikshithar , R...

Amrutha Venkatesh / S. Karthick (Violin) / Nirmal Narayanan (Mridangam) @ Music Academy We walked into the auditorium a little late and missed a couple of songs . Amrutha sang Shri Subramanyaya Namaste in Kamboji. My first reaction was "This is a Kriti meant to be rendered only by Stalwarts like Ariyakudi / KVN / Chembai / Vedavalli etc" and I stand by it. I feel at times that I spend too much time listening to (old timers) stalwarts and hence end up panning the current set of singers. Hers is an fairly good voice - which is slightly aggressive. The violinst played offkey multiple times. Nirmal played a good Tani. Another grudge I bear against most of the current generation is that they don't take time to listen to concerts of stalwarts. Smt. Vedavalli sang a brilliant concert just some time before at the same venue. It would have made sense for Ms. Venkatesh to attend the same. ( Had seen her walk out of Trichur V. Ramachandran's concert which followed hers at Banga...

Vinod, one of my closest friends and colleague at Oracle (also an ardent rasika of Carnatic Music and good singer of old Hindi film songs and Ghazals) landed at Chennai in the morning. We had planned to attend a few good concerts when he was around. We had already finalized on attending Dr. R. Vedavalli's early morning concert at The Music Academy. One of the foremost disciples of late Pallavi exponent Sangita KalAnidhi Mudikondan Venkatrama Iyer, Sangita KalAnidhi R. Vedavalli is a member of the old guard of Carnatic Music. She has trained under Smt. T.Muktamma too. She is a veteran teacher and an equally proficient performing artiste. I like her unhurried,majestic style of singing. Her Ragam Tanam Pallavis are a treat to listen. 1.) Arrived at the venue a little late and missed her Dhanyasi Varnam. Spotted plenty of stalwarts at the concert today - Sangita KalAnidhi T.K.Govinda Rao, Sangita KalAnidhi M. Chandrashekar, MallAdi brothers and Vidushi Neela Ramgopal. 2.) Heard a wond...

There were many stalls outside the auditorium. Bought a few vintage CDs of Dr. Pinakapani and Dr. R.K Srikantan besides a few issues of Sruti Magazine. We went to the canteen attached to The Academy to grab a bite. Each sabha has its own varied fare of south indian delicacies and snacks. Picked a few more CDs by Bombay Jayashree and Sowmya (Dikshithar Advaitaparva kritis and Neelotpalamba Vibhakti Kritis) Attended Savita NArasimhan's afternoon slot concert for a while. Listened to her SahAna.Sweet voice but lacks depth and hence unsuitable for Carnatic music in my opinion. The next venue was Krishna Gana Sabha at T.Nagar. We went to pick up my aunt at whose house we were residing in Chennai. She likes Bombay Jayashree's music a lot and had expressed her desire to accompany us for this concert. Krishna Gana Sabha is another famed venue at Madras. Continued my music shopping outside the sabha and picked up a book on Semmangudi Srinivasier. I came to know that Vainaka Vidwan Rudra...

I was in Chennai last weekend for the famous December season. I'll be narrating our musical experiences in the next few posts. We left from Bangalore on 21 st December and reached Madras (aka Chennai) on 22nd morning. I'd taken along printouts of the concert schedules from 22nd to 25th. Had a tough time deciding on which concerts to attend as various Sabhas host concerts of front ranking artistes simultaneously. The first concert we attended was of Madurai R. Sundar (He is a disciple of T.N. Seshagopalan and Ananthalakshmi Sadagopan) at Bharat Kalachar. The prime motivation for attending this concert was that he was being accompanied by R.K.ShriramKumar on the violin, Mridangam maestro Trichy Sankaran and B.Purushothaman on the Kanjira. Struck a conversation with a mAmA at the Venue. I remarked to my mom that I'd prefer listening to Malladi Brothers than TNS and this uncle wanted to know why. I didn't know how to react as I couldn't gauge whether he was a die hard T...