My Chennai Diary - Day-2, Part -2.
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 Bangalore Gayana Samaj last month.)
Madurai T. N. S. Krishna / Melakavery Thyagarajan (Violin) / Nellai Balaji (Mridangam) @ Music Academy
1.) BegadA Varnam - Adi Talam
2.) Merusamana - St Thyagaraja - Adi talam - well rendered song
3.) Nice Alapanai in Shanmukhapriya . Marivere - Patnam Subramanya Iyer.
Krishna has a powerful voice and weaves complex swara patterns wit hflair.
4.) Neelambari - Amba Neelayadakshi - Dikshithar. Slow and lilting as Neelambari ought to be sung
5.) Ambavani - Kirvani - Muthiah Bhagavathar - Rupakam
6.) Kalyani - Talli NInnu - Shyama Shastri - Chapu
7.) RTP in Thodi.
Pallavi - MAdhava Maruga, MA Mayil Muruga SharavanabhavA, Adi Vaa, Nee Odi Vaa, Virintodi Vaa
8.) Viruttam in Saveri, malayamArutham, Hameer Kalyani and Madhyamavati
9.) Tillana in Chandrakauns
10.) Mangalam
Enjoyable concert. TNS Krishna is a budding artiste and will surely evolve to be a good performer. His facial contortions make him an ideal candidate for caricature. He clones his father a bit too much to my liking or better put TNSK reminds me of a young TNS.
We wanted to check out Arun Sayeeram next (we are not fans of her music and wanted to gauge the reason for her popularity.) but went to Woodlands instead as we were pretty hungry by then. After satiating ourselves with dosais and kaapi , we went to Parthasarathy Sabha. Sanjay was singing there at 6 but when we reached the venue at aound 5.15 we heard the Alapanai of Hamsanandi. Bought the tickets for Sanjay's concert and entered the venue.
A jugalbandi by Carnatica Brothers and Ramesh Narayan was in progress. They were accompanied by Durai Balasubramaniam (Violin), Tanjore Murugaboopathy (Mridangam), Aravind Chatterjee (Tabla)
This sabha was founded in 1900 and is the oldest music Sabha in Madras. It seems to be caught in a time warp - old auditorium, tall fans, not too great acoustics . Wonderful pictures of Lord Parthasarathy at the venue.
Puriya is the Hindustani equivalent of Hamsanandi , though some people sing Sohoni. Sohoni and Puriya share the same Arohana/ Avarohan but Puriya stresses on Ni and Ma whereas Sohoni stresses on Sa and Ga (the VAdi and SamvAdi swars) . Ramesh is a disciple of Jasraj and his voice is pleasing . He has a wonderful range spanning 3 octaves. His voice is way superior to that of ShashiKiran. Ganesh's voice has a good range and he showed more competency than Shashikiran despite he being a chitra veena player. The music was good but ear shattering due to acoustics being too loud. Same holds true for the percussionists who played well but at higher decibel levels. Liked the bandish "Shyam Sundar" which is a traditional Mewati Gharana composition.
(To continue.)
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 Bangalore Gayana Samaj last month.)
2.) Viruttam in Ananda Bhairavi / Saveri and Behag followeed by "Sada namma Hridaya Dalli"
3.) Suruti - RAmachandra Nee Daya
Madurai T. N. S. Krishna / Melakavery Thyagarajan (Violin) / Nellai Balaji (Mridangam) @ Music Academy
1.) BegadA Varnam - Adi Talam
2.) Merusamana - St Thyagaraja - Adi talam - well rendered song
3.) Nice Alapanai in Shanmukhapriya . Marivere - Patnam Subramanya Iyer.
Krishna has a powerful voice and weaves complex swara patterns wit hflair.
4.) Neelambari - Amba Neelayadakshi - Dikshithar. Slow and lilting as Neelambari ought to be sung
5.) Ambavani - Kirvani - Muthiah Bhagavathar - Rupakam
6.) Kalyani - Talli NInnu - Shyama Shastri - Chapu
7.) RTP in Thodi.
Pallavi - MAdhava Maruga, MA Mayil Muruga SharavanabhavA, Adi Vaa, Nee Odi Vaa, Virintodi Vaa
8.) Viruttam in Saveri, malayamArutham, Hameer Kalyani and Madhyamavati
9.) Tillana in Chandrakauns
10.) Mangalam
Enjoyable concert. TNS Krishna is a budding artiste and will surely evolve to be a good performer. His facial contortions make him an ideal candidate for caricature. He clones his father a bit too much to my liking or better put TNSK reminds me of a young TNS.
We wanted to check out Arun Sayeeram next (we are not fans of her music and wanted to gauge the reason for her popularity.) but went to Woodlands instead as we were pretty hungry by then. After satiating ourselves with dosais and kaapi , we went to Parthasarathy Sabha. Sanjay was singing there at 6 but when we reached the venue at aound 5.15 we heard the Alapanai of Hamsanandi. Bought the tickets for Sanjay's concert and entered the venue.
A jugalbandi by Carnatica Brothers and Ramesh Narayan was in progress. They were accompanied by Durai Balasubramaniam (Violin), Tanjore Murugaboopathy (Mridangam), Aravind Chatterjee (Tabla)
This sabha was founded in 1900 and is the oldest music Sabha in Madras. It seems to be caught in a time warp - old auditorium, tall fans, not too great acoustics . Wonderful pictures of Lord Parthasarathy at the venue.
Puriya is the Hindustani equivalent of Hamsanandi , though some people sing Sohoni. Sohoni and Puriya share the same Arohana/ Avarohan but Puriya stresses on Ni and Ma whereas Sohoni stresses on Sa and Ga (the VAdi and SamvAdi swars) . Ramesh is a disciple of Jasraj and his voice is pleasing . He has a wonderful range spanning 3 octaves. His voice is way superior to that of ShashiKiran. Ganesh's voice has a good range and he showed more competency than Shashikiran despite he being a chitra veena player. The music was good but ear shattering due to acoustics being too loud. Same holds true for the percussionists who played well but at higher decibel levels. Liked the bandish "Shyam Sundar" which is a traditional Mewati Gharana composition.
(To continue.)
Comments
I stumbled upon your blog while checking out on TMK google search. Stopped by to read the posts. The line "I am not a fan of Aruna, and wanted to guage her popularity"...? put me off so decided not to come back again. I do not know who you are, but I am certainly older to you in age and I sincerely request you never to put such lines on a open place. Have you gone through her profile on the web? Have you heard her live performance? It is indeed unfortunate, we people from Bangalore do not get enough of Carnatic music by Chennai based artists. Listen to her once and you will regret having written that line.