srirAm gangAdharan@Ashtika samAjam (thiruvAnmiyur) on May 11

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 12 May 2009, 13:46

srirAm gangAdharan@Ashtika samAjam (thiruvAnmiyur) on May 11th,2009
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Accompanied by kandadevi vijayarAghavan - violin, madipakkam's suresh and murali in mridhangam and ghatam respectively
..
1.ekadhantam (S) - bilahari - T(MD Not T , corrected a day later)
2.deva deva kalayAmithE (N S)- mAyAmAlavagowlai - ST
6 mins neraval in "jAtarUpa nibhacEla janmArcitam mamAkhila" and 7 mins swaram
3. ranjani niranjani (R N S) -ranjani -gnb
11 mins alApanai , 6 mins violin return ,4 mins neraval and 6 mins swaram
neraval in "kanjadaLa lOcanI kAmAKSi "

4. uddhAram tArumayyA?? -tODi - GKB
5A.viDemu sEyavE (R S T)- kharaharapriyA -T
17 mins alApanai , 7 mins violin return,17 mins swaras
5B. tani for 7 mins

6. speech by narasimhan
7. chidambaram pOgAmal - shenjuruTTi - GKB
8. jagath janani sukhapAni - ratipathipriyA - GhANam krishna Iyer
9. pavamAna (mangalam)

The month of may reminds me of the song "april mayila pasumaiya illa kANju pOchu dA, indhu vooru piDikkala uLagam piddikala bore bore dA"(roughly means april may there is no greenery and the weather being dry the place is a big bore), that song kind of applies well to chennai in the month there is no carnatic music as there are very very few concerts , infact in the last 2 weeks for almost 10 days there is zero CM concerts at chennai.

Putting that song aside , one of the most remarkable difference between GNB era of musicians and today's era of musicians is the charge till the main portion of the krithi that GNB type of musicians bring , but today's musicians to a great extent are not capable of giving that much vocal exuberance . SrirAm gangadharan took me to that gnb era , his speed , brigha uruTTal and absolutely long cycles of alAapanai, dazzling speed in neraval and swaras just was brilliant throughout.

I was about 10 minutes late at 06:40 pm , the first hour till the submain was a bullet speed of saNgathis , classicism at its best .The fast bilahari swaras was dazzling , the jAtarupa neraval in mmgowlai was excellent and the swaras were exhilirating .

The days best was the submain. Ranjani a rAgA that most musicians dilute by singing it with more sowkhyam but the patterns that Sriram brought must have made even GNB shed tears , unsagging pitch with minimal breathing cycles was superb.

After an expressive ranjani, he settled in a keezh kAla tOdi and was well presented. The main in kharaharapriyA was the second best almost equalling ranjani. kharaharapriyA perhaps suffers from excess semmangudi prototype , but sriram's alApanai was very very different .It was a new pattern very expressive kharaharapriya, the krithi rendition was very good, the swaras were in two speeds , the first madhyama Kala rendition was for about 10 minutes and was outstanding , the second half of 8 mins mEl kAlam was also very good , though it was very very loud and there was slight slip by the percussionist.

The speech by narasimhan was thank god short as he was only there from ranjani, he compared his madurai mani ranjani + kAraikurichi ranjani and sriram's ranjani, quite apt and well deserved comparison. Out of the two tukkadas the whirl wind chidambaram tour in shenjuruTTi was more satisfying , the jagathjanani was slightly off key.

Few minuses more with the musician than this particular concert:
----------------------------------------------------------------
1. He can take atleast one slow number in atleast a tukkadas , too much of speed for all krithis (though I loved it infact that is his USP) was little tiresome with me towards say the end of 2nd hour concert.

2. Slokham or viruththam rendition could have taken this concert towards an outstanding one , and could have surely put a little brake to his breakneck speed.

3. This hall is very very poor in acoustic setup, even though I sat comfortably away from the speaker he was just ballistic for few sangathis in kharaharapriyA little adjustment there would have helped.

4.Lot of male musicians being bald lose quite a bit of rasikas, but I see shriram consistently keeps his head shaven(I read somewhere that he is also a rock music fan) , this kind of billiard mottai mandai is perhaps not giving much crowd to this brilliant musician. THat too with his fast brighas and his power in singing he is appearing at times in the boxing ring than a kutcheri pandal, he can get away from his billiards mottai mandai, that will surely pull more rasikas.

The violinist vijayarAghavan was extremely responsive and played beautifully throughout catching all the manOdharma brigha uruttal of shriram. Both the madipakkam's played very well though the mridangist lost a lot of sound during tani (I guess sriram with his non stop sprint till main was the reason).

Overall this is my 2nd live concert of sriram(I remember him singing a rare shruthiranjani krithi in the first one roughly 3 or 4 years back). Considering he representing the second generation discipiles of GNB , I just cannot stop this review here without say comparing two big second generation stars of GNB. Sanjay kind of struggles with his voice in higher pitches , suddha kind of loses steam in presenting gnb numbers ,but sriram brings the old charm of super fast GNB style of singing , it requires exceptionally high voice finesse and an extraordinary aesthetic brighas to a great extent sriram gave both in plenty, a rare and a very underrated musician.

OVerall an excellent 2 hour 20 minutes high energy concert. Hopefully I would love to hear him more and more this unsagging classicism filled brilliance .

anandabhairavi · Post by **anandabhairavi** » 12 May 2009, 16:37

Rajesh Sir

All main carnatic musicians are out of India in April May oru velai singing like this

April Mayila veyil Thaangala odu odu da!
Dollar kidaikudu free stay kidaikudu Paadu paaduda!!;)

srinivasrgvn · Post by **srinivasrgvn** » 12 May 2009, 16:53

Rajeshnat! The review is more excellent than the concert! I especially liked:

Lot of male musicians being bald lose quite a bit of rasikas, but I see shriram consistently keeps his head shaven(I read somewhere that he is also a rock music fan) , this kind of billiard mottai mandai is perhaps not giving much crowd to this brilliant musician. THat too with his fast brighas and his power in singing he is appearing at times in the boxing ring than a kutcheri pandal, he can get away from his billiards mottai mandai, that will surely pull more rasikas.

=) Even I agree with you. I was kind of afraid when I saw him the first time in Music Academy!

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 13 May 2009, 10:38

srinivasrgvn wrote:Rajeshnat! The review is more excellent than the concert!....

The one and only reason for that is because you were not there in the concert!!

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 14 May 2009, 00:27

Rajesh,
As usual, your review entertains and educates.
I listened to him during the season after a few year's gap, and agree with you totally on your first point. His singing appealed to me a lot, but the unrelenting speed all through the concert was a bit much for me.
Yes, in the little NGS mini hall, his handsome face topped with a glistening pate and his fast jabs with svarAs brought the pugilistic atmosphere to me as well!

mridhangam · Post by **mridhangam** » 16 May 2009, 09:55

anandabhairavi wrote:Rajesh Sir

All main carnatic musicians are out of India in April May oru velai singing like this

April Mayila veyil Thaangala odu odu da!
Dollar kidaikudu free stay kidaikudu Paadu paaduda!!;)

hahahahah well said. deserves a place in Hilarity in Concerts thread also

JB

anandabhairavi · Post by **anandabhairavi** » 19 May 2009, 09:43

thanks Balaji sir for appreciating my sutta poem!!