19th ANNIVERSARY OF CHARUBALA MOHAN TRUST - HONOURING SRI.NAGAI R. MURALIDHARAN AND SRI.K.S.KALIDAS

Review the latest concerts you have listened to.
Post Reply
CRama
Posts: 2939
Joined: 18 Nov 2009, 16:58

19th ANNIVERSARY OF CHARUBALA MOHAN TRUST - HONOURING SRI.NAGAI R. MURALIDHARAN AND SRI.K.S.KALIDAS

Post by CRama »

Charubala Mohan Trust founded by Violin Maestro Sangeeta Kalanidhi M.Chandrasekharan celebrated its 19th anniversary in Arkay Convention Centre on 9 Sep 2017. The Trust has been honouring selected vidwans every year. This year the title VIOLIN NADAMANI was awarded to Violin Vidwan Sri. Nagai Muraleedharan and the title MRIDANGA NADAMANI was awarded to Mridanga Vidwan Sri. K.S.Kalidas. Nagai Muraleedharan, a very popular vidwan is the disciple of Sri.R.S.Gopalakrishnan- a Violin Vidwan of yesteryears. Nagai Murali has worked in AIR for 28 years and once he played non stop violin for 26 hours in the Sreerangam temple. We have enjoyed his violin for many vidwans and he is still enriching the concerts of many young vidwans and vidushis and also playing violin duet with his star disciple Nagai Sriram. While giving away the award, Guruvayur Dorai mentioned him as a very large hearted person, always working for the welfare of fellow musicians. In his reply, Sri.Nagai Muraleedharan said that MC requested him to accept the award last year, but due to other commitments he could not make it. It is a great magnanimity on the part of MC to remember him and select him for the award this year.

Sri.K.S.Kalidas, an Engineer since retired from Railways learnt under Palani Subramania Pillai only for two years. Family commitments forced him to choose the Railways job over Mridangam and he had to serve in various places. He was very active in the concert field during the period 1968-1986. Due to some accident, he is not playing Mridangam for the last 18 years. But he is training a lot of students in the strict Puducottai tradition. Many of his students are already in the concert circuit and some of them are definitely going to achieve very high levels. His disciple young Akshay Anand is already playing for many concerts. Guruvayur Dorai presented him with the award. Cleveland Sundaram felicitated the awardees.

The hall was full for the event and many musicians like Suguna Varadachary attended. After the award function there was a scintillating violin duet by Nagai Muraleedharan and Nagai Sriram accompanied by Mannargudi Easwaran on the Mridangam and Nerkundram Sankar on the Ganjira.

Prior to the function, there was a concert featuring the compositions of Sri.M.Chandrasekaran. Sri M.Chandrasekaran, apart from being a highly accomplished violinist and vocalist, is also a composer of merit- which aspect has not received due attention of music lovers. It is understood that he has composed three varnams and thirty two kritis on various Gods of the Hindu pantheon and some on general themes also. The compositions are sung by the Maestro in some of his vocal concerts over AIR. The compositions satisfy the requirements of yati, prasa, different eduppus, different talas, chittaswarams, madhyamakalam, jatis in a wide variety of ragas and languages qualified to enrich the concerts. V.Navneetkrishnan, a torch bearer of the KVN bani accompanied by M.Vijay on the Violin and Sai Krishnan on the Mridangam presented a concert for about one and half hours exclusively devoted to the compositions of Sri.Chandrasekaran. The list of songs presented.

MaRavA varam taruvAy Sree MahAganapate Ganapate pate- Amritavarshini-Adi (S)
• KailAsavAsane Sree KarpagAmbA sameta-Natakapriya-Rupakam
• MArakoti Sundari MarakatAngi mAtangi-Malavi- Mishrachapu
• Un pAdame gati Tillai ambala Natarajane-Latangi-Rupakam (R,N,S)
• Chintanai seytAl nanmai peRalAme
pArkadalil paLLikonda Sree renganAthanai-Sudhasaveri- Tisra Triputa-2 kalai (R,N,S)
• Kuzhanthayin iniya sol yAvarayum mayakkidum
Kavalaigal ellAm maRanthidum-Behag- Ekam.


The organisers could have given an introductory speech about the compositions of MC for rasikas who do not have much information about his compositions. In the above songs, the composer’s mudra was found only in the song in Natakapriya. That song had got good yati patterns- like pAlane, paripAlane, bhaktajana paripAlane. The first song also had yati patterns like Sree MahAganapate Ganapate pate. The song in Malavi had Madhyamakala sahithyam. The song in Latangi had Madhyamakala sahithyam and solkattu also within that. The song in Behag was not on any God as is explicit in the sahithyam of the pallavi.

Vidwan Navaneeth made a good presentation of the songs which he has internalised with dedication for this concert and he sang all the songs without any single piece of paper. That is appreciable. KVN bani was much evident in his music- all the more in the expansive alapana of Sudhasaveri which KVN used to render in the Navarathri Mandapam. The violinist M. Vijay is presently honing his skills with Vidwan S.Varadarajan and the Mridangist Sai Krishna is a student of Sri Parameswaran of Palghat, a disciple of T.K.Murthy. TKM bani was very much evident in his playing and the accompanists embellished the concert to a great extent.

Post Reply