Tamizh Isai Festival organized by Singapore Indian Fine Arts

[Murali]

Sharing my impressions about the Tamizh isai festival organized by SIFAS. The festival was spread over 3 days and kicked off with an inaugural concert by Sri Vijay Siva, who presented a theme on thevaram trinity. The other artists included VK Manimaran, TL Maharajan, Smt Sankari Krishnan,
V Shankaranarayanan and Prasanna Venkatraman apart from some other young local talents. There was also a lecture demonstration by Smt Meenakshi Sabapathy. I could only catch a few concerts in the series. So I will write about whatever I attended. Also I dont have comprehensive songlists for the concerts, the next time I will do a good job. This is more to give an overview of the series than a review of concerts.

Vijay Siva: His theme was Thevaram Trinity. He was accompanied by Mullaivasal Chandramouli, Mannarkoil J Balaji & Trivandrum Rajagopal. The concert included a nice mix of very rare pieces as well as known ones. Kamboji was well sung. In my opinion, it was a very good concert, but thought he could have dwelled more on neraval and swaras. This is just an observation and the concert itself was really nice. Sri Chandramouli's playing and Mannarkoil J Balaji's tani was very good.

VK Manimaran: This concert was based on Tamizh Moovar (Muthu Thandavar, Arunachala Kavi and Marimutha Pillai). I have not attended his concerts before and only heard of him as an organizer for Jaya TV concerts. But I was in for a surprise package. He came off as a very mature artist who is confident and creative on stage. The whole concert came off very well and there was a visible camaraderie on stage.

Prasanna Venkataraman: His theme was Koteeshwara Iyer, Neelakanta Sivan, and Ramaswami Sivan. His concert was again really good and to my mind, Begada (Kadai Kan) was the pick of the concert. My other friends enjoyed the concert too.

V Shankaranarayanan's featured presentation was interesting. It was a surprise for all of us when he launched a Harikatha format of presentation. While he took it in a story format, the students were made to render compositions at each stage (some individually and some as a group). I managed to catch only the second part of this due to lack of time. But found the feature very engaging.

The response was very good for all the concerts that I attended.

[mahakavi]

Thanks Murali for the overview.
There are lots of songs in the Thamizh category (be it tEvAram, tiruvAcagam, AzhwAr pAsurams, KambarAmAyaNam,or even sangam literature like paripADal, kurundogai etc.,) that can be brought to light by enterprising musicians

[ksrimech]

mahakavi, I too feel more can be done in this feild. A couple more to add to your list - dEsikaprabhandam (svAmi vEdAntadEsikan) and ASTaprabhandam (piLLai perumAL ayyangAr svAmi).