Madras String QuartetEsplanade Singapore November 14 2008

[kamalamba]

As part of the Singapore Kala Utsavam, the Madras String Quartet gave a very interesting, unique, and excellent concert at Esplanade on 14 November.
The quartet is led by the wonderfully talented violinist VS Narasimhan, who most of us have heard as the main violinist for Ilayaraja, in albums such as How to Name it, Nothing but wind, and the exceptional violin pieces in RAja PArvai.

The idea is to perform carnatic music with western harmonic principles.

The concert went as follows (which started with a Mozart composition)

Mozart
Evari Bodhana (Abhogi)
Sri Maha Ganapathi (Gowla)
Parathpara (Vachaspati)
Chakravagam (a Papanasam Sivan composition; I cannot recollect the words)
gnanamosagarada (Purvi Kalyani)
sri subramanya namaste (Kambodhi)
Ora Joopu (Kannada Gowla)
Own composition Bilahari
Lalgudi Desh Thillana
Chinnanchiru Kiliye (I did not know this was set to tune by CR Subburaman for Manamagal movie in 1951).
Krishna Nee Begane

I enjoyed the entire concert, but was most impressed with the handling of ragas Gowla, Kambhodhi, and Purvi Kalyani.

The son of the legendary Kunnakkudi Vaidyanathan played the Cello in the quartet. There were two others playing the violin and viola respectively.

[shadjam]

Kamalamba,

Thanks for the review. Was there any information/sale of his new/upcoming album named "Raga Saga" during the concert? I am just curious since I have been looking for its release for sometime now. Thank you. A preview of this album is available:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN9LwyzsQ9E

[kamalamba]

Shadjam, nothing was announced. However, I missed the meet the artists session; it might have been discussed then.
Kamalamba

[bilahari]

Hi kamalamba, was there manodharma in any of the pieces? Or just the compositions were perfomed?

[kamalamba]

Very little Manodharma (short alapanas and some kalpanaswaras) but it was very nice nevertheless.