Dr S Sunder@PS High School on Nov 24th,2009

[rajeshnat]

Dr S Sunder@PS High School on Nov 24th,2009
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Accompanied by mullaivAsal chandramouli-violin, guruvAyur durai- mrudhangam . Vocal support was also given by a young vidushi and another kanjira Artist(any one who knows their names can post). Organized by mylapore arts academy

The Hindu advertised the concert without the theme which I came to know after I entered the hall. The pamphlet listed out the concert series as thamizh isai payanam and incidentally Dr sunder took a theme of his guru , so all compositions were "DKJ popularized thamizh krithis", certainly a nice theme as DKJ has diggged lot of compositions in thamizh.

1.mulAdhara mUrthE - hamsadhwani - psivan
2.nekkurugi (brief raga sketch) - AbhOgi -psivan
3.inta parAmukkamEdu (R N S) -poorvikalyANi - sankaradAs swami
alApanai for 6 mins, 3 mins violin
4 mins neraval in "Neeyoru Shilayo murai Kettu illaiyO?? " and 4 mins swaras

4.mA ramanan(R) - hindOlam - psivan
3 mins alApanai with no violin return
5. eppaDi maNam tuNindadO -husEni - AK
6. karpagamE (R) - madhyamAvati - psivan
alApanai for 8 mins and 6 mins violin return

7A. uNNai yaLLaL verEgati(R S T) - kalyANi - psivan
alApanai for 11 mins and 7 mins violin return , swaras for 10 mins
7B. tani for 20 mins

8. nAn oru vilayAttu - navarasa kannada - psivan
9. vA vA vA murugaiyyA - sindhu bhairavi - gomathi ramasubramaniam
10. devAdi devanukku jaya mangalam - shurutti - ???

The concert was for 2 hours and 15 minutes. I wanted to listen to Dr sunder and this is my first concert experience of him .There were few pluses and many minuses in this concert

+ Dr sunder has a very strong diction and all his numbers had a clean enunciation of lyrics

+ Dr sunder has a voice quite similiar to today's NSG .The voice is very rich in male bass and has a very sedate tone , nevertheless enjoyed it

- For almost all singers past and present ,When two singers of opposite sexes sing the voices dont match perfectly and at many places with two varying shruthis the dissonance effect is very omnipresent , to a great extent this concert fell in that trap and I could not really enjoy much. The young supporting vidushi sang in a high shruthi and just did not gel that well with the timber of Dr Sunder, kind of did not give a synchorized feel to my ears .

- Guruvayur Durai's mridangam never gelled well with the kalApramAnam of the singers , he was always tad slower and more importantly the strokes were just not that enjoyable, sound was never right most of the time. A mediocre play by the mridangist durai, he did not lift the concert quality .

- neraval was minimal and was only presented for the poorvikalyAni number, not much neraval mileage at all .

+ - Almost all numbers were just mediocre to good , the kalyANi alApanai of Dr Sunder was the best in all the alApanais he sang

+ Both the tukkadas were sung with the right feel of lyrics , I especially enjoyed the rare sindhubhairavi.

+ The morsing artist played quite well and mullaivAsal was the best pick of the team, he played quite slowly all the alApanais and it was quite good.

Came out with a feeling that I could have chosen a better first impression of Dr Sunder.Overall a mediocre to good concert by the team.

[PUNARVASU]

'dEvAdi dEvanukku jayamangaLam' in suruTTi is a composition of my guru P.KRajagopala Aiyar, of Ambattur. I think Dr.Sunder had studied under him too.

[balusatya]

I find Dr.Sundar is one of those disciples of DKJ to follow his stamp in most of the kritis esp.MD ( last heard in Hamsadhwani prog)&thukkadas ( special mention to be made about Vijay Siva for the way he sings swinging both hands or keeping them crossed in the thighs- thalam controlled by foot -reminding DKJ). Even when you just recollect hearing the rendering" Nee adiya aattangal avanikku virundaiyya... Avamanam unnakkaiyya.. arulmozhipesaiyya" .in the SinduBhairavi piece one is welled with tears -I have experienced!Three cheers to those who uphold His rich music tradition.