saketarAman-madurai kumaresh@ps school on April 29th,2010

[rajeshnat]

saketarAman - madurai kumaresh@ps high school on April 29th,2010
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Vocal : saketarAman
Violin : parur MA sundareswaran
Mrudangam : madurai K kumaresh
ghatam : EM subramaniam
Concert duration : 2 hours and 15 minutes with atleast 25 minutes of garlanding and speech
Occasion and Sponsors : mridanga aRangetram of madurai K kumaresh , conducted by doyen UKS's laya laavanyA foundation.

1. valachi valachi (varnam)- navarAgamAligA -Kottavasal Venkatarama Iyer
2. mahA gaNapathim(RS ,S) - nAttai - MD
brief alApana and 2 minutes swaras
3. ParidanamichitE (R) - bilahari - patnam
2 mins each of alApanai and violin return

4.gnanamO sagarAdA(R N S)- poorvikalyANi- T
9 mins alApanai , 3 mins violin return
5 mins neraval in "paripoorna nishtalanka niravati sukhadAyaka" and 6 mins swaram
5. marukElarA - jayanthashri - T

6A. endukku pEddala (R N S T) - shankarAbharanam - T
11 mins alApanai and 5 mins violin return
neraval in "vEda sAstra tatvArtamu thelisi" for 8 mins
swaras for 9 mins
6B. tani for 32 minutes

Speech by UKS and Madurai GS mani who was the chief guest for 25 minutes

7. srinivAsa tiruvekata- hamsAnandi - psivan
8. mANasa saNchararE - shyamA - SB
9. tanOm tA thiranA - parAs - poochi
10. eru mayilEri "thirruppugazh"- mohanam ?? - AGN
....

UKS with his foundation laya lAvanyA is doing an incredible service . I have witnessed atleast the arangetram of 4 students of him (ammangudi ramnarayanan, sudharsan, mannArgudi shreyas and now madurai K kumaresh). He picks a vocalist of immense potential, a well seasoned accompanist like EMS and MAS and always calls a very established and well respected senior vidwan to be the chief guest in the corridors of mylApore. For this day's concert the chief guest was madurai GS mani.UKS helps everyway he could and tries his best to market these young vidwans so that they can swim with a great start in their musical career.

The young mridangist madurai K kumaresh , a resident of bangalore was not as young as mannargudi shreyas whom I heard last time , may be he is in his higher secondary school or first year in college.kumaresh had a lot of roll and as gs mani said he was far higher than what one can expect in an aRangetram.

THe start by saketaraman was very good in the varnam, but the next two numbers in nAttai and bilahari were bit too short and also not that well presented , he could have sung more swarams in nAttai atleast to give more strokeful oppurtunities to the mridangist.The sub main was the pick of the day, nice dose of karuna rasa of poorvikalyANi and sAketharAman had a very high shruthi suddham with a lot of emote in his style that pepped up well, kumaresh played well but I could not hear that much for this number and the next jayanthashri , the mikes were readjusted and rotated with new ones but still did not pick enough of kumaresh's right side roll.

Mikes got adjusted well from sbharanam with few minutes of stoppage of concert, the krithi was well done with a very nice neraval and swaras , the krithi was played with a lot of anticipation and a slight restraint which goes well with sbharanam. With neraval the aggression returned and continued well with swaras with more strokes .

Tani was long , cant complain as it was mrudanga aRangetra kutcheri , but I did not hear even one wink of boring patterns , especially EMS has to be commended he was so professional as a upapakkavAdhyam artist and did a great job, rotations were well done with more oppurtunity for the man of the match to play more.In the tukkadas liked all of them for their emote the shyamA could have been bit better.

The violinist MA sundareswaran usually plays a shade better than what he played , his mike was not set to pick up well and I heard his press was bit low in poorvikalyANi. UKS spoke beautifully he started with his humour "innikku paiyanakku matrum aRangetram illa , mikekkum aRangetram" , madurai GS mani was elated to be there and he was so professional in his talk and really blessed all the artists ,his humility is very noticable for the kind of vidwat that he has. palakkad mani iyer's disciple srinivasan was also there to garland the artist.

If there were few shortcomings with sAketaraman , he can work on giving more weight to his voice , he focusses more on emote than on sangathi weight, kind of goes well for most of the concert but not for the entire concert.Also contextually for this concert,he could have tailored more for the mridangam arangetram, like giving a little more spacing between say pallavi and anupallavi and few more swara patterns in nAttai so that the mridangam boy could have showcased more (some thing that i noticed more with the last mannargudi shreyas arangetram in the last laya laavanya arangetram that I attended).Nevertheless sAketharaman's shruthi suddham is always there.

Kumaresh played beautifully and there was quite an effortless style ,no konashtai( frowning face)and as GS mani said the lad was far higher for an arangetram. i had to leave at the beginning of thirruppugazh as it was close to a time where it was late for me to go home.

Kudos to UKS and his senior disciples like erode nAgarAj(i saw him in a distance) in helping another mrudangam artist, one could see in UKS a sense of satisfaction in training and making him concert ready and also a sense of gentle push in trying his best to promote his student in the fairly closed circle of mylapore with a very few porous opening(especially this guy is from bangalore he needs that a lot) .Overall a very good concert.

p.s can some one help(may be erode) if the mridangist name is kumaresh or kumaresan.I hate to incorrrectly write and spell names

[erode14]

Nice review Rajesh. His name is Madurai K.Kumaresh.

[VRV]

Rajesh,

Nice write up. Congratulations and best wishes to the young mridangist. Hope to hear him the next time I visit Chennai.

Vinod Venkataraman