Kruthi Bhat@Pozhichalur On Dec 03rd,2018
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Vocal : Kruthi Bhat , vidushi from Texas .Her primary guru is her mother RajaRajeshwari Bhat who is the sister of popular violinist Vittal Ramamurthy
Violin : V V Ravi
Mrudangam : B Ganapathy Raman
KanjirA : Nerkunam Shankar
Concert Type : Nirvana - no concert to follow and Free concert
Day/Duration : Monday ,3 hours and 05 mins - 05:25 to 08:30 PM
Sabha : Thrimoorthy Sangeetha Sabha ,Aastika samAjam, Pozhichalur
01. sAveri varnam - missed this as i was late
02. tyAgarAja swAmi padAmbujam(?, N,S) - atAnA - Ambujam Krishna
neraval in kAvEritIratil kanindu manamurgi dEvAdidEvan nAmathai??? for 3 mins
swaras for 4 mins
03. shree shankara guruvaram (CS,S) - nagaswarali - mahA vaidyanatha Iyer
04. aparAdhamulanniyu (R,N,S)- lathangi - patnam
6 mins alapana and 4 mins violin return
5 mins neraval in kripa jEsina manavyAla for 5 mins
swaras for 6 mins
05A. emi jEsithE (R,N,S,T) - tOdi - T
11 mins alapana and 7 mins violin return
neraval for 9 mins in vara mantram anyulaku upajEsincheti??
swaras for 8 mins
05B. tani for 15 mins
06. RTP in KAnadA for 43 mins
Pallavi line was shanmughA murugA guhA kA nadarAja maindhA
alapana for 8 mins wiht 6 mins of violin return
8 mins taanam without mrudangam
pallavi and swaras for the rest of 43 mins
swara ragamaliga in kAnadA+ varAli + sumanesaranjani + sAveri+ ranjani
07. kAkkai chiraganilE nandalAlA- durgA + KEtkum Oliyil ellAm -???- mahakavi bharathiyar
08. chudarE chelulAra yamunA devi - pantuvarali(in madhyamashruthi) - T
2 mins alapana in madhyamashruti pantuvarAli
08A. viruththam en thaayum enakkarul - shanmughapriyA +
en thaayum enakkarul - shyamA +
kumAra - sindhubhairavi
08B. thillana ..dhimita janu januta .... mAlOn marugan murugan - sindhubhairavi - LGJ
09. pavamAna
Kruthi Bhat@Pozhichalur On Dec 03rd,2018
-
rajeshnat
- Posts: 9927
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04
Re: Kruthi Bhat@Pozhichalur On Dec 03rd,2018
This vidushi is certainly only young in age but very matured in music. From the distant land of America the order of musicians that i got acclimitized was sandeep narayan, Kamalakiran vinjamuri, ramakrishnan murthy , aditya prakash ... certainly this young vidushi kruthi bhat is in that league of excellence of the above mentioned names .
Thanks to the finest of finest sabhas thirumoorthy sabha@Pozhichalur . I personally did not make it to pozhichalur for 2017 season .I did make it for few seasons prior starting from 2010 with founder patron Late Krishnamoorthy running this sabha . Mrs krishamoorthy and their family are running this sabha right now .The striking aspect of the sabha is the start of 05:30 pm. I wanted to make it to this sabha atleast once this year I planned for sat or sunday(abilash or TNS krishna) but it did not materialize. 2 years back I heard kruthi bhat singing in parthasarathi sabha , that concert as i entered she sang a lovely todi vazhi maraithirukkude .That day it was rainy season in dec 2016 with trees falling in both sides of the road, 2 years later still it was vazhi maraithirukkude with the nearby pallavaram dug up for a new flyover. I came 10 or 15 mins late and I asked another rasika what she sang before atana. He said sAveri varnam.
As I settled the atana thamizh song of ambujam krishna just got started , not sure if she sang an alapana in atana . Kruthi bhat gave a nice thrust to the emote aspect .Ambujam krishna poured bhakthi praising sadguru thyagaraja with superb sAhithyam.I was bit surprised when kruthi bhat also sang a lovely short neraval in atAna with nice aesthetic followup of swaras .IT is quite rare to ever get a neraval for a raga like atana. shankara guruvaram in nagaswarali was sung next she brought in a bit of momentum but it was not strong enough to enjoy her nagaswarAli . I would have liked a bit more of interaction with percussion there.
Lathangi was the submain. I am slowly graduating over the years from a stage of strong dislike to lathangi , and right now moving towards like . I used to have something in my head which kind of told me then as though - Why cannot musicians make up their mind to sing either pantuvarali or kalyani than rather sing a bit lacklustre latangi . But now I am bit okay with lathangi. Kruthi sang with lot of sowkhyam and the patnam krithi came up well oiled with nice spread of spacing for both neraval and swaras with strong shruthi sense.
I was not expecting main to immediately follow submain . IN any case some rasika in the crowd asked her to plan and sing a RTP .The violinist Shri V V Ravi said yes we are planning . What a lovely todi main that kruthi bhat sang. They say if you sing tOdi well you have got Carnatic Music at its extreme depth. What a lovely alapana , i was not expecting this young vidushi to give quite a high share of nadaswara pidis in her todi alapana . The sabha is thrimoorthy sabha and I always notice all musicians show an extra shraddhai to this sabha paying attention with not much showmanship here. What a lovely rendition of emi jesithe krithi , sangathis were enunciated with extremely high accuracy of splitting of words and kaarvais were added generously in the grand todi to give more grander feel for thyagaraja master piece krithi. There was Lovely controlled neraval and swaras it was bit limited yes ,but still pretty much even spread of excellence.
She could have gone for a fast filler between main and RTP . This is pozhichalur a day or two back abilash giriprasad went for 3 hours and 45 mins which i missed . Kruthi Bhat jettisoned all kruthis but settled with RTP for the next 43 mins .She took kAnadA for RTP . The alapana had great sowkhyam for most time for few mins she was kind of circling on the same patterns in kAnadA ragam. Taanam was non metered, I would have preferred bit more risk taking with mrudangam .She could have taken the pallavi tanam atleast briefly in the direction of TRS mAmA . I was told few years back that she had a limited stint with TRS, not sure if that is right. For even himalayan greats certain ragas like KAnada and say poorvikalyani at times a certain high quota of repetition comes up.To that extent kruthi bhat was following the padanthara suddham of great masters of the past.
shanmugha murugA guhA kA , natarAja maindhA was the Lovely pallavi line .At some places she stressed as kA nadaraja at some places as kA nataraja it was interesting pallavi line connecting Muruga and natarajA with the clever raga mudhra embedded as part of pallavi. Swara ragamaliga did not rain heavily but it was constrained with the same low to medium velocity for all ragas. All ragas in swara ragamaliga had near equal quanta (kAnadA+ varAli + sumanesaranjani + sAveri+ ranjani) the contrast from heavy varali to a more modern sumanesaranjani showed her flair and i particularly liked those two .
tukkadas were sung very well, kAkkai chirganile start with durga alapana was superb and the subsequent raga was more haunting, i missed identifying the two ragas and if my memory is right she traced all the ragas when she sang and ended with the phrase nandalAlA. I am assuming this is the version that mahavidwan TNS sings. The next in madhyamashruthi pantuvarali has no signs of any anti inflammatory rasa .What a rendition of this krithi chudarE celulAra that was simply haunting nope double haunting.These nauka charithra krithi of sadhguru particularly this is bit like the utsava sampradaya krithi shobanE .For a brief time when the alapana was on i connected briefly to vishwapriya alapana of maharajapuram santhanam where he follows up with ashtapadi anilatharala.This number is an emote weapon and nauka charithram gives Thyagaja a bit of Narayana theerthar persona.
Viruththam on lord muruga was well done with nice emote in ragas and correct pronunciation , she rendered in shanmughapriya, shyamA and then ended with sindhubhairavi . The tillana of Lalgudi showcased her apprenticeship with her mama vittal ramamurthy and if my memory is right she also has taken few lessons from LGJ. I dont think i have heard in vocal this lalgudi sindhubhairavi thillana , she sang with quite a high exuberance .
VV ravi had nice press but his violin quality was not very rich in consistency of naadam. Ganpathyraman played with sensitivity, he gave few contrasting pattens and the teamed up with Shankar with the right amplification and sareeram to suit vidushi kruthi bhat. Tani was just good with few pockets of excellence, they both were sensitive to the hall and ambience.
Kruthi Bhat knows how to use the microphone
--------------------------------------------
For almost the full 3 hours the volume and pitch of her voice was nearly the same . She kept her voice fresh at 05:30 pm and incidentally the same freshness was there even at 08:30 pm. My favourite female vidushis are say rAji gopalakrishnan, pantula rama , sangeetha swaminathan etal and i am assuming she is surely heading in that direction.
In the young brigade we have musicians like amrutha venkatesh , NJ Nandini , they all have lot of sowkhyam and there is evenness without shouting and strain. This strength is very great and one has to give it to young kruthi in adapting that where more work of modulation is outsourced to the microphone .
On the flip side I Personally feel this kind of strength of using microphone more is only good in short to medium term. Vidushis and vidwans can get bit more problems as they move from medium to long term . The youth and melody voice is only transient .I only wish kruthi brings in little more voice throw across octaves ,some ragas like say ranjani in swararagamaliga can have bit more throw . That is just a humble point of view. Anyway as of now kruthi is to me bit like a shade of pantula rama and amrutha venkatesh - there is all round balance , her strength is shruthi suddham, kruthi enunciation and there is measured and accurate steps in taanam , alapana and swaras.
Thanks to the lovely sabha of Pozhichalur ,they just donot disturb the artist and throw it open without constraints .Pozhichalur does not have any nonsense as monitor , sharp give it here to the stage and base gave it there to the audience . From the time when i came in for the first time to hear a surprising 3 hours and 15 mins concert by one of my favourite vidwan/vidushi with a rare RTP in kapinarayani when Late Krishnamoorthy (the founder )who was running this sabha . I always seee this sabha has some mystic aura for the 6 or so concerts that i attended here. The sabha uses Olai (casuarina )to tie the hall end to end with very low celing not even an iota of sound escapes even from the first floor to ground floor .The naadam preperation is prepared for 11 months and the performance only happens during december season. More than anything artists give their highest quanta of shraddhai and manodharmam here at pozhichalur .After all what can you expect when the first concert and inauguration was done by Taala Raaga Swaroopan.
I had few minutes to discuss with artists , i am told that the nauka charithram krithi chudarE chelulAra yamunA devi - pantuvarali(in madhyamashruthi) was taught by V V Ravi's anna Shri v v subramaniam . Also I came to know that rajeshwari bhat , mother of kruthi has also learnt from sethalapathi balasubramaniam. With that information now i am connecting as to why there was no CowBoy Texas sangathis at all, there were only koothanur saraswathi sangathis . In 3 to 5 decades from now ,the future of carnatic music will be lead by atleast one vidushi Kruthi bhat and another vidwan Abilash giriprasad who was there as the rasika .
Overall an excellent concert for 3 hours and 5 minutes.
Thanks to the finest of finest sabhas thirumoorthy sabha@Pozhichalur . I personally did not make it to pozhichalur for 2017 season .I did make it for few seasons prior starting from 2010 with founder patron Late Krishnamoorthy running this sabha . Mrs krishamoorthy and their family are running this sabha right now .The striking aspect of the sabha is the start of 05:30 pm. I wanted to make it to this sabha atleast once this year I planned for sat or sunday(abilash or TNS krishna) but it did not materialize. 2 years back I heard kruthi bhat singing in parthasarathi sabha , that concert as i entered she sang a lovely todi vazhi maraithirukkude .That day it was rainy season in dec 2016 with trees falling in both sides of the road, 2 years later still it was vazhi maraithirukkude with the nearby pallavaram dug up for a new flyover. I came 10 or 15 mins late and I asked another rasika what she sang before atana. He said sAveri varnam.
As I settled the atana thamizh song of ambujam krishna just got started , not sure if she sang an alapana in atana . Kruthi bhat gave a nice thrust to the emote aspect .Ambujam krishna poured bhakthi praising sadguru thyagaraja with superb sAhithyam.I was bit surprised when kruthi bhat also sang a lovely short neraval in atAna with nice aesthetic followup of swaras .IT is quite rare to ever get a neraval for a raga like atana. shankara guruvaram in nagaswarali was sung next she brought in a bit of momentum but it was not strong enough to enjoy her nagaswarAli . I would have liked a bit more of interaction with percussion there.
Lathangi was the submain. I am slowly graduating over the years from a stage of strong dislike to lathangi , and right now moving towards like . I used to have something in my head which kind of told me then as though - Why cannot musicians make up their mind to sing either pantuvarali or kalyani than rather sing a bit lacklustre latangi . But now I am bit okay with lathangi. Kruthi sang with lot of sowkhyam and the patnam krithi came up well oiled with nice spread of spacing for both neraval and swaras with strong shruthi sense.
I was not expecting main to immediately follow submain . IN any case some rasika in the crowd asked her to plan and sing a RTP .The violinist Shri V V Ravi said yes we are planning . What a lovely todi main that kruthi bhat sang. They say if you sing tOdi well you have got Carnatic Music at its extreme depth. What a lovely alapana , i was not expecting this young vidushi to give quite a high share of nadaswara pidis in her todi alapana . The sabha is thrimoorthy sabha and I always notice all musicians show an extra shraddhai to this sabha paying attention with not much showmanship here. What a lovely rendition of emi jesithe krithi , sangathis were enunciated with extremely high accuracy of splitting of words and kaarvais were added generously in the grand todi to give more grander feel for thyagaraja master piece krithi. There was Lovely controlled neraval and swaras it was bit limited yes ,but still pretty much even spread of excellence.
She could have gone for a fast filler between main and RTP . This is pozhichalur a day or two back abilash giriprasad went for 3 hours and 45 mins which i missed . Kruthi Bhat jettisoned all kruthis but settled with RTP for the next 43 mins .She took kAnadA for RTP . The alapana had great sowkhyam for most time for few mins she was kind of circling on the same patterns in kAnadA ragam. Taanam was non metered, I would have preferred bit more risk taking with mrudangam .She could have taken the pallavi tanam atleast briefly in the direction of TRS mAmA . I was told few years back that she had a limited stint with TRS, not sure if that is right. For even himalayan greats certain ragas like KAnada and say poorvikalyani at times a certain high quota of repetition comes up.To that extent kruthi bhat was following the padanthara suddham of great masters of the past.
shanmugha murugA guhA kA , natarAja maindhA was the Lovely pallavi line .At some places she stressed as kA nadaraja at some places as kA nataraja it was interesting pallavi line connecting Muruga and natarajA with the clever raga mudhra embedded as part of pallavi. Swara ragamaliga did not rain heavily but it was constrained with the same low to medium velocity for all ragas. All ragas in swara ragamaliga had near equal quanta (kAnadA+ varAli + sumanesaranjani + sAveri+ ranjani) the contrast from heavy varali to a more modern sumanesaranjani showed her flair and i particularly liked those two .
tukkadas were sung very well, kAkkai chirganile start with durga alapana was superb and the subsequent raga was more haunting, i missed identifying the two ragas and if my memory is right she traced all the ragas when she sang and ended with the phrase nandalAlA. I am assuming this is the version that mahavidwan TNS sings. The next in madhyamashruthi pantuvarali has no signs of any anti inflammatory rasa .What a rendition of this krithi chudarE celulAra that was simply haunting nope double haunting.These nauka charithra krithi of sadhguru particularly this is bit like the utsava sampradaya krithi shobanE .For a brief time when the alapana was on i connected briefly to vishwapriya alapana of maharajapuram santhanam where he follows up with ashtapadi anilatharala.This number is an emote weapon and nauka charithram gives Thyagaja a bit of Narayana theerthar persona.
Viruththam on lord muruga was well done with nice emote in ragas and correct pronunciation , she rendered in shanmughapriya, shyamA and then ended with sindhubhairavi . The tillana of Lalgudi showcased her apprenticeship with her mama vittal ramamurthy and if my memory is right she also has taken few lessons from LGJ. I dont think i have heard in vocal this lalgudi sindhubhairavi thillana , she sang with quite a high exuberance .
VV ravi had nice press but his violin quality was not very rich in consistency of naadam. Ganpathyraman played with sensitivity, he gave few contrasting pattens and the teamed up with Shankar with the right amplification and sareeram to suit vidushi kruthi bhat. Tani was just good with few pockets of excellence, they both were sensitive to the hall and ambience.
Kruthi Bhat knows how to use the microphone
--------------------------------------------
For almost the full 3 hours the volume and pitch of her voice was nearly the same . She kept her voice fresh at 05:30 pm and incidentally the same freshness was there even at 08:30 pm. My favourite female vidushis are say rAji gopalakrishnan, pantula rama , sangeetha swaminathan etal and i am assuming she is surely heading in that direction.
In the young brigade we have musicians like amrutha venkatesh , NJ Nandini , they all have lot of sowkhyam and there is evenness without shouting and strain. This strength is very great and one has to give it to young kruthi in adapting that where more work of modulation is outsourced to the microphone .
On the flip side I Personally feel this kind of strength of using microphone more is only good in short to medium term. Vidushis and vidwans can get bit more problems as they move from medium to long term . The youth and melody voice is only transient .I only wish kruthi brings in little more voice throw across octaves ,some ragas like say ranjani in swararagamaliga can have bit more throw . That is just a humble point of view. Anyway as of now kruthi is to me bit like a shade of pantula rama and amrutha venkatesh - there is all round balance , her strength is shruthi suddham, kruthi enunciation and there is measured and accurate steps in taanam , alapana and swaras.
Thanks to the lovely sabha of Pozhichalur ,they just donot disturb the artist and throw it open without constraints .Pozhichalur does not have any nonsense as monitor , sharp give it here to the stage and base gave it there to the audience . From the time when i came in for the first time to hear a surprising 3 hours and 15 mins concert by one of my favourite vidwan/vidushi with a rare RTP in kapinarayani when Late Krishnamoorthy (the founder )who was running this sabha . I always seee this sabha has some mystic aura for the 6 or so concerts that i attended here. The sabha uses Olai (casuarina )to tie the hall end to end with very low celing not even an iota of sound escapes even from the first floor to ground floor .The naadam preperation is prepared for 11 months and the performance only happens during december season. More than anything artists give their highest quanta of shraddhai and manodharmam here at pozhichalur .After all what can you expect when the first concert and inauguration was done by Taala Raaga Swaroopan.
I had few minutes to discuss with artists , i am told that the nauka charithram krithi chudarE chelulAra yamunA devi - pantuvarali(in madhyamashruthi) was taught by V V Ravi's anna Shri v v subramaniam . Also I came to know that rajeshwari bhat , mother of kruthi has also learnt from sethalapathi balasubramaniam. With that information now i am connecting as to why there was no CowBoy Texas sangathis at all, there were only koothanur saraswathi sangathis . In 3 to 5 decades from now ,the future of carnatic music will be lead by atleast one vidushi Kruthi bhat and another vidwan Abilash giriprasad who was there as the rasika .
Overall an excellent concert for 3 hours and 5 minutes.