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Vocal : Tadepally Lokanadha sarma
Vocal Support : His son Sri Krishna (Dont know if sri is a title or his name is srikrishna)
Violin : Lalgudi VijayalAkshmi
Mrudangam : R RamkumAr aka Abode RamkumAr
Concert duration/Day : 2 hours and 35 Minutes/Sunday
Sponsors : Rasayana(coolkarni)
in collaboration with Brihadvani and Suresh VV Suresh VV partly sponsored this concert of Tadepally Lokanadha sarma , incidentally the banner was on his Dad naramsimhapuram V S Vaidyanathan. I did not know that he is doing it for the second time , last year perhaps went unnoticed when he sponsored Smt Gayarthri Girish concert .Very good suresh keep it up , your daughters closing remarks was also great
.Coming to the concert , it was a very different one from the usual rush rush rush type of concerts that most of the musicians sing . The songs were minimal and Lokanadha sarma has a very original approach .He started with a dedication to his guru, parents with his own krithi in hamsAnandi . Incidentally the start was bit unconventional , a hamsAnandi alApana made me wonder if cool's hindustani love has got into shri Lokanadha sharma, the krithi of hamsAnandi was more of an invocation, musical quotient was not that high but it predominated with more sahitya rasa.
The next no #2 in kalyAna vasantham was very different , when you hear you may not find a map with the usual kalyAnavasantham krithi of say a santhanam's nadaloludai or anyone before or after. I clarified with his son and he said my dad sings with a different dhaivatam , IIRC he said chatushra daivatam instead of the sudda daivatam is tadepally's Kalyana vasantham. I did not get that well accustomed sowkhyam of kalyAna vasantham in this rendition , but certainly it was a nice #2 .
1. Lakshmi subrahmanya(R) - hamsAnandi - Tadepally Lokanadha sarma
2 mins alapana sketch of hamsAnandi
2. nAdalOludai - kalyAna vasantham - T
If I Could say in one phrase this concert it was more of a "two raga two krithi concert ". The first of that was splendid , the contours of mAyamAlavagowlai was explored beautifully ,I could see a touch rather almost close to MDR there who is one of the best mm gowlai singers , there is always a sangathi and a rightful pause the alApana just opened out beautifully.He is a rare musician and he takes care to select a rare composer and the rendition of the krithi, a rare one "mAyAtheetha swarUpiNi " by Tanjore Ponniah. As he moved to the finish of krithi , I was thinking may be I missed a nice neraval in mmgowlai , but he came back to the right line "mAyAmAlavagowla desamuna mahimagala doraladhinta eeshwari??", there was a definite repetition in his neraval , but at times repetition just reinforces a touch of musical aesthetic stickiness in each of our heads to get the muse right. The neraval itself went for 18 mins with a very aesthetic return by the violinist. The swaras of the MMGowlai went long and he really presented with no big fireworks ,but it was really well thought out aesthetics . THE MMGOWLAI was the krithi of the concert.
The filler was sAma dhana , he kept on repeating that quite often and then went to sarasa sAma dhana , similiarly matta Lentho and then only itavu mAta lEntho, the kApinarayani was a slow filler not the usual MMI patented one and I liked it .
3. mAyAtheetha swarUpiNi (R N S) - mAyAmAlavagowlai - Tanjore Ponniah
10 mins alapana and 6 mins violin return
18 mins neraval in "mAyAmAlavagowla desamuna mahimagala doraladhinta eeshwari??"
19 mins swaras in mmgowlai
4. sarasa sAma dhAna - kApinarayani - T
When Submain was itself for 50 + mins almost like a main, the main was bit as long as submain.To an extent I did not find his tODi that exploratory in aesthtetics as much as his MMGowlai. The tOdi alApana signal was bit light for many sangathis. He sang the chinna annamacharya (grandson or son???) composition which was based on talapakkam annamacharyA. I was thinking that he did few bEdhams to revati in neraval , but his son clarified that it was not bedham but he sang few sangathis to reinforce "sAma veda saptaswara mulanu" where to reinforce those lines sAma veda he sang like vedic hymns. The swaras also had those revati like patterns .The tOdi swaras were expansive in time , But I would have preferred a more different expansiveness of rAga essence of todi.There was a bit of repetition which kept me less glued in todi.
5A. sara nanti mAthani sambanda (R N S T) - tODi - chinna talapakkam annamAcharya?
alapana in two stages with violin return for 20 mins
11 mins neraval in "sAma vEda saptaswara mulanu"
16 mins swaras
5B. tani for 5 mins
In the tukkadas he sang two of them , the first I asked where he got the right emote with this pathos filled subhapantuvarali beginning with a telugu slokham (this nAnATi paTUku krithi I heard last time as a main)and the second was a request by nageshwaran sir where he sang a lovely folkish tukkada of his guru chitoor subramania pillai
6A.telugu slokham "Okanamnadu?? " - subhapantuvarali -??
6B. nAnATi paTUku - subhapantuvarAli - AC
7. amma yashOdani - mishra mAnd - Chitoor subramania pillai
8. shree venkata nivasAya mangalam (RS)- madhyamavati
Few words about violinist:
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Lalgudi viji's play was really well done , her school is known to play violin with an emphasis of "No tampering of sahityAs". Overall there was lot of sowkhyam and she went with the flow of TLS.
Lot more words
about mrudangist:--------------------------------------------
I dont know if Suresh came up with this name as abode ramkumar , certainly he played beautifully his guru's lovely nAdham and there was no overbang at all(known as UKS Way). Incidentally the tani was in khanda chApu which is very rare. Also when he played for mm gowlai , it must have given him a lifetime of chowka kAla experience , I atleast got reminded of MDR- LGJ- UKS atleast coming up again as TLS-LalgudiViji-Ramkumar and certainly they as a team got that closeness and zing (MDR fans like my late maternal thatha , please donot hurl missiles at me for this comparison to MDR :devil:
). His tani was bit too short.Overall this musician gave me two polarized views . One in which I felt ,hey musicians can bring musical quotient with sahithya anubhavam (case of mmgowlai) and also felt is musical quotient getting lost because of too much sAhitya anubhavam (case of tOdi).
Overall a very good concert for 2 hours and 35 minutes, you have to definitely hear that 50 + minutes of melakartha 15 .
MAyatIta swarUpiNi is a rare one and I haven't heard it from anybody other than MDR! The elaboration of two R1-D1 ragas is interesting...I generally prefer R2-D2 ragas - they just sound more easy on the ears. I don't know why. 
, mmgowlai with soan papdi or kAjukatli would have been a better combo like this smilie 
)
- Tanjore Ponniah