Season Notes 2015

I was there in Chennai for 4 days this season. My notes on this season

- Attended the lecdems at Academy. The one about talas in Yaksha Gana was good. The konnakol lec dem following that was equally good. Two interesting incidents took place during these lec dems. After the Yaksha Gana lec dem Sanjay commented that though the speaker said the tala was jampa tala he was reckoning it as khanda capu. The speaker sheepish said that the way they reckoned it in Yaksha Gana was actually jampa as that he was as 5,5,5 because that was easier for him. After Konnakol demo, where the speaker spoke about how konnakol was known from Bharata's time, Pappu Venugopal Rao remarked, "There are two ways to do research. One is to come to a conclusion first and then look for evidence. The other is to first look for data and then come to conclusion based on data. Your's is the first variety and you presented it in an intelligent fashion"

- Sowmya's lec dem was sort of letdown. The topic specified was 'Same raga but different treatment by Tyagaraja and Dikshitar'. I was very keen to attend this. Unfortunately Sowmya went in a different route and spoke about Tyagaraja and Dikshitar krithis in different scales but having same raga name. This was not what many expected. Though she had come prepared well wrt historical details, the mismatch between expectation and delivery did not let me enjoy the lec dem fully

- The lec dem of Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna and Arun Prakash at Parthasarathy Sabha was enjoyable. They did lot of impromptu stuff. It also showed the difference between a lec dem in Music Academy versus a lec dem anywhere else. The Academy lec dems are very formal affairs. The lec dem here was very informal.

- Also attended a part of lec dem of Santhanagopalan which had the title of 'What if the Mumurthis met each other?' It was sort of myth making and not very historical. A day earlier the same issue was discussed in Academy when Pappu Venugopal Rao said, "The trinity lived just 150 years back but we have no evidence of their meeting each other". V.Sriram had replied saying, "It is said that Dikshitar had commented to Subbaraya Sastry that in one of the Tyagaraja krithis, the Sanskit was not great. Tyagaraja is supposed to have replied that it was the best a Telugu Brahmin could do when it came to Sanskrit. Also Syama Sastry and Tyagaraja must have met since Subbaraya Sastry learned under Tyagaraja"

- R S Jayalakshmi gave a good lec dem on Veenai Pitchumani. Tiruchur Ramachandran gave a lec dem. The topic is not of importance since he spoke mostly about GNB's music.

- The panel discussion of the positive and negative effects of technology on Carnatic music was nice. Some good points were raised. I will deal with that in a different post

- Heard youngsters in the afternoon slot at Academy: Subiksha Rangarajan, Aishwarya Vidya Raghunath, Akkarai sisters, Vittal Ramamurthy's daughter and a couple more. All of them have a certain degree of skill. The accompanying artists were also quite good in most of these concerts and they were very young as well. It is nice to see youngsters perform with such confidence. Most of them are willing to take risks and that's a good trend. Hopefully they will find their unique voices in the coming years.

- For the evening concerts, I went to Naada Inbam on most days. Alamelu Mani the first day I arrived. She sang some nice krithis including the rare Karnataka Kapi based Venkatachalapathe. She also sang the Bhairavi padam 'rama rama prana sakhi'

- Sukuna Varadhachary sang a very nice Brovavamma in Manji. Her voice in general was not very cooperative but this particular krithi was rendered well

- For me, the Rama Ravi's concert was the best concert I attended. I later heard that she did not sing anywhere other than at Naada Inbam. For her also the voice was not in the best shape but she tamed it. It was a concert littered with majestic pieces: 'Dakshinamurthe' (Sankarabaranam), 'nilayadakshi' (Parasu) and the glorious 'koniyadina' (Khamboji). The Kambhoji alapana was top class with some exquisite pieces. Most of us in the audience went 'aahaa' spontaneously. An elderly gentleman sitting in the first row remarked, "romba nalla paadineenga ma' (You sang very well). As it is the concert was terrific but it was taken to a higher plane when Rama Ravi sang the Varali padam. Words can do justice to the singing nor to that composition. Hamsadhwani javali (nera mora), Bhairavi javali ('ela raadayane') and Kalyani javali ('enthati kuluke'). What more can you ask for? Manoj Siva's mridangam was just perfect

- Other than Alamelu Mani and Rama Ravi, Aishwarya Vidya Raghunath also sang a padam. She sang the Ahiri padam, 'mosamaye' in Academy. She did a decent job. Akkarai sisters also sang a padam, 'Tiruvotriyur Tyagarajan' in Atana but there singing made it sound more like a krithi than a padam.

- Nothing to write about canteens. All places were sumaar.

- Met with a lot of friends and also watched my friend, Meera Sundar, accompany on violin. She did a very good job. Hoping to see more of her in the coming years

- Wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous 2016