Sriram gangAdharan@swamy's hall on Jan 09th,2010

[rajeshnat]

Sriram gangAdharan@swamy's hall on Jan 09th,2010
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Vocal : Sriram gangAdharan
Violin : V.Sanjeev
Mrudangam : J.vaidyanAthan
kanjirA : SundarkumAr
Concert duration : 1 hour 50 minutes

Yesterday there were quite a few of rememberance day concerts . Some where GNB anniversary based concerts , at another place palakkAd raghu birthday , the third was Tanjore S kalyAnarAman death anniversary day. I went to hear Sriram who is a direct performing disciple of SKR.Sriram had a great and superb team .

Pluses were in plenty till tani:
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Sriram has a vocal charge in his music , his style is very much like GNB , infact I can say he is almost a carbon copy of GNB which is a generous complement . sangathis & sangathis in plenty with very minimal pause is his music.

His start was in nAttai in a fiery GNB like speed , swaras were well done . The next number was a GNB made famous krithi in malayAmArutham manAsAetulO , brigas in plenty in a comfortably high speed with a lovely neraval .

In the very first concert that I attended at adyAr hamsadhwani , sriram sang this rare rAga shruthiranjani, he sang this as a submain . Alapana was for about 13 minutes and he sang with a lot of speedy aesthetics. swaras in shruthiranjani was bit curtailed ,he could have gone more. A rare GNB krithi in kuntalavarAli and was well done.

tODi of sriram was emulated in the grounds of gnb who must have been inspired very much by nAdaswara bAni, few sangathis in keezh kalAm and then a thrust in few high speed brighas brought in the charm in alApana. The fast kadAnuvarikki in tOdi was the main with a nice spread of neraval that could have had more cycles but he shortened it , swaras were well done at just few places he lost a bit of shruthi in few sangathis in krithi in tOdi.

Post tani was a bit of letdown:
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His speed is bit bothersome , how would he feel when he goes home in his car pressing accelerator and then finally not finding the brake. Well that is what I felt with his post tani tukkadas.

Other than thillAna of SKR in dwijAvanthi which he handled well , his penchant for over speed and always singing the same GNB tukkadAs bothered me a lot . Always he sings rAdhA samethA krishna and dhikku theiryAdha kAttil, little excessive adulation for GNB and the same krithis. He sang both well but few sangathis in dhikku theriyAdha kAttil was too fast and it was slightly difficult to concentrate.

Two Major Crib :
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# SKR as a musician has modelled and sung a lot of his guru's krithis of GNB, but there are atleast hundreds of SKR only researched krithis like say ashta rAga mAlika of ranjani, few numbers of NS chidambaram , numbers in few haunting rAgas like madhuvanthi (kanda nAl mudhalAi) and sumenesa ranjani (Unnai arindavar ) and vatta naduvE (rAgamAlika pasuram), unfortunately Sriram did not sing this concert as "SKR Day", it was more of a 'GNB Day'. Sriram's excess adulation of always repeating GNB numbers has to change. Also the shruthi ranjani is one that SKR or gnb has not tried , sriram himself announced that.So what is the point in calling this as "skr day"

# The concert started at 7pm instead of 06:30 pm they screened the dvds of SKR before, i did not attend that screening as I already have that 2 lovely DVD in my private collection .But Sriram was actually heading for a closure of 08:30 PM.Then few rasikas asked him to sing till atleast 9pm and Sanjeev's mother who owns this sabha Smt brinda (who was a sishya of SKR)also gave a green signal . But sriram rushed with his dhikku theriyada , and one very difficult to comprehend shenjurutti and radha sametha krishna and wrapping up at 08:50 Pm was more 'idhu porum innikku for this sabha(today this will do)', the whole night was open , a disciple of the illustrious SKR should have sung for atleast 2 hours and 30 minutes or 3 hours.

Accompanists:
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All three were consistent and excellent , sanjeev had the kanyakumari speed which came in handy for sriram, JV was exceptionally good superb anticipation and sundar kumar played beautifully, their tani was crisp.

1. mahA gaNapathim(S) - nAttai - MD
swaras for 3 mins
2. manasAyetulO (N,S)- malayamArutham - T
neraval for 6 mins in "kalilO rAjasa tAmasa guNamula galavAri celimi"
swaras for 4 mins
3. EdAri sancarinturA (R S)- shruthiranjani -T
13 mins alapanai , 6 mins violin return
3 mins swaras

4. Ninnu pogada tarama - Kuntalavarali - GNB
5A. kadAnuvArikki (R N S T) - tOdi - T
alApanai for 15 mins, 9 mins violin return
5 mins neraval in "niddura nirAkarinci mudduga tambura baTTi shuddhamaina "
7 mins swaras
5B. tani for 7 mins

6. tOm tOm ta ...oM eNNUm pranava - dwijAvanthi thillAna -SKR (lovely composition)
7. rAdhA samethA krishnA - mishrayaman - unknown composer
8. kaliyuga dO hari ...kOtigalu??? - shenjuruTTi _???
9. dikku theriyAda kAttil - rAgamAliga -
10. pavamAnA

In general Sriram gangAdharan has very high classical weight till main , but after that it was a bit dampener and all the years I have seen him he repeating the same numbers of GNB. As I said before it should have been a SKR day concert , but sriram made it as a gnb day concert.

Overall a very good concert for 1 hour and 50 minutes, curtailed concert but the accompanist team gelled and excelled, but SKR was remembered only for his thillAnA of dwijAvanthi, 100's of pure skr trademark only songs never found the way.

[Divya Gopalan]

what a comprehensive review, you seem to have covered all aspects. As much as I wanted to attend, I missed his concerts during the season! hope to hear him soon.