YACM 25th Anniversary Celebrations

rithvikraja · Post by **rithvikraja** » 21 Aug 2010, 19:37

Smt. S. Sowmya is singing at the YACM Silver Jubilee Anniversary. Click here to watch it live now! http://yacm.in/anniversary25.html

tkb · Post by **tkb** » 21 Aug 2010, 20:02

Super clarity. Enjoying the concert! Thanks for the technology and the team which is doing a fantastic work!

Is it going to be available all the days?

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 21 Aug 2010, 20:09

rithvikraja,
Thank you!

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 21 Aug 2010, 20:20

Rithvik Raja - it is awesome! Thank you.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 21 Aug 2010, 20:41

Can someone identify the artists on stage with Smt. Sowmya?

tkb · Post by **tkb** » 21 Aug 2010, 20:46

I know Sri Bharat Sundar on the right and Smt. Vidya Kalyanaraman on the left of Smt Sowmya with Sri Embar Kannan on the violin, Sri Poongulam Subramanian on mrudhangam and Dr. S. Karthick on the Ghatam. Do not know the names of the other three persons on stage.

tkb · Post by **tkb** » 21 Aug 2010, 20:52

Just got information from Sri Chandrasekara Sharma that the person sitting right of Bharat Sundar is Sri Ramakrishnamurthy and the person next to Vidya Kalyanaraman's left is Ms. Bharathi Ramasubban. Ms Ms. Lakshmi on Tambura (student of Smt Sowmya)
from left to Right on the screen:

Sri Poongulam Subramanian on Mrudhangam
Dr. S. S. Karthick - Ghatam
Sri Ramakrishnamurthy
Sri Bharath Sundar
Smt. Sowmya
Ms Lakshmi behind Smt Sowmya on Tambura
Smt. Vidya Kalyaraman
Ms. Bharathi Ramasubban
Sri Embar S. Kannan - Violin

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 21 Aug 2010, 21:48

Thank you, Sri TKB.

rithvikraja · Post by **rithvikraja** » 22 Aug 2010, 07:55

Thank you all for your response.

@tkb - Yes it is going to be available on all days.
@Pratyaksham Bala - Thanks for watching. Don't miss today's special programmes.
@rshankar - Great...! The title of the concert was 'Past Forward' - A Concert inspired by the great masters of Carnatic Music

It's all live today too... Don't miss it.

Rithvik

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 22 Aug 2010, 12:41

Aug 28th's concert with Viji Natarajan, Dr. Narmada, and Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi is like my dream come true! Please, please, please stream it!

Rajani · Post by **Rajani** » 22 Aug 2010, 18:33

Thanks Ritvik, for this wonderful service to all rasikas world wide.

Would someone let me know the names of people in the discussion.

Babu · Post by **Babu** » 22 Aug 2010, 19:51

Thanks Rithwik for the great service and I am watching and listening to Veena Gayathiri's Veena concert at this very moment in Texas. Good quality streaming. I also heard partly the discussions with Mrs. Charumathi Ramachandran and Sri. Cleveland Sundaram in the panel. Thought I saw a prominent recording engineer. I could not recognize the others. I did not fully catch their discussions on recordings and one of them said one can enjoy recordings despite disturbances. Can somebody elaborate the gist of the discussions ? Regards

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 22 Aug 2010, 20:27

Oooh! Thank you for the reminder. Starting a bit late, but, as of now, I'm watching too

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 22 Aug 2010, 21:58

Streaming is great! But how about a video that we can watch later? I am sure today's sambhasahanam can keep "rasikas" chattering for weeks!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 22 Aug 2010, 23:05

I have been watching the web cast as well. Good job Ritvik and team on the technical side.

I caught the presentations on Voletti, Ramnad Krishnan, Somu and MDR last night. The young presenters did a good job in their persentations. Sriranjani Santhanagopalan has excellent skills in public speaking in both English and Tamil. She presented about Ramnad Krishnan and she said she visited with the family to gather information for the presentation.

This morning, I caught the last part of the thani and the thukkadas of the Veena Gayathri concert.

I missed the discussion part that preceded it. I agree with Suresh, that would give enough fodder for chatter here for weeks.

Sundara Rajan · Post by **Sundara Rajan** » 22 Aug 2010, 23:31

Would some one, who listened to the veena concert of Gayathri, kindly report the songs/ragas presented. Thanks.

ragam-talam · Post by **ragam-talam** » 23 Aug 2010, 00:05

Ragas featured included (difficult to figure out some of the kritis!):
Manirangu (Jaya jaya padmanabha)
Khamas
Anandabhairavi
Kokilapriya
Jayanthashri (was the kriti Mysore Vasudevacharya's 'Sridhara pAhi'?)
Begada
RTP Shanmukhapriya - tanam ragas included mohanam, dhanyasi
- thukkadas

Others can add/correct.
Overall impression: somehow I felt the concert lacked a certain passion/excitement... Not a criticism of the artiste per se. I like her veena playing a lot, but today it felt a bit bland.

ragam-talam · Post by **ragam-talam** » 23 Aug 2010, 00:24

Re: the innovation in CM discussion...
1. I felt it meandered around a bit too much, veering off topic several times. The compere should have provided more focus to the discussion.
2. One thing I noticed was how nobody actually talked about examples of a few innovations in CM! Would have provided some focus to the discussion. I so much wanted to raise this question, but we had no way to do this.

Rithvik Raja/other organisers: is it possible to provide an opportunity to remote viewers to raise questions, esp for the panel discussion events. I realise it could be logistical problem, but please do look into it. Thanks.

Also, I noticed occasionally a bit of chatter from the people monitoring the video system...! Please remember, your voices do carry all around the world!

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 23 Aug 2010, 00:49

Me too! I thought, "Even here I can't get away from people chatting through concerts". They'll be adding it to studio-recorded CDs soon, just to make us feel at home!

I think it is amazing that this is being streamed: it is a great success, and any criticism should be taken in that context --- just small points to make it even better.

My point to look at would be the pan settings: there was a lot of mridangam on the right channel which feels a little strange to listen too. As I said, it is a small point.

Oh, wait... you were talking about the discussion; I just caught the last part of the veena concert.

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 23 Aug 2010, 03:05

The 2nd generation violin trinity concert on 28 August seems very interesting!

Confluence of Styles
Smt. Viji Krishnan Natarajan, Dr. M. Narmada, Lalgudi Smt. Vijayalakshmi with 'Guruji' Dr. T.V. Gopalakrishnan and Tripoonithura Sri Radhakrishnan

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 23 Aug 2010, 04:29

Along the same spirit of what Nick said ( amazing stuff you are all pulling off, these are just minor suggestions ):
Regarding the camera work, you do not have to pan wide most of the time to include Violinist, Mridangist and Ghatam artist etc. In such a long view, in webcasts we can not really see much detail of anyone. You can focus on individual artists for a while. Especially with instrumentalists, I like to watch their finger movements

Great job. I am also looking forward to the confuence of styles concert coming weekend.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 23 Aug 2010, 09:59

ragam-talam wrote:Ragas featured included (difficult to figure out some of the kritis!):
Manirangu (Jaya jaya padmanabha)
Khamas
Anandabhairavi
Natakapriya
Jayanthashri (was the kriti Mysore Vasudevacharya's 'Sridhara pAhi'?)
Begada
RTP Shanmukhapriya - tanam ragas included mohanam, dhanyasi
- thukkadas

Others can add/correct.
Overall impression: somehow I felt the concert lacked a certain passion/excitement... Not a criticism of the artiste per se. I like her veena playing a lot, but today it felt a bit bland.

I think:

Khamas - Santhanagopalakrishnam
Kokilapriya not Natakapriya

Raga alapana was done for Kokilapriya and Jayanthasree among others. The precision in her playing was remarkable. I was at the hall and the experience was very blissful thanks in part to the wonderful acoustics at MA.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 23 Aug 2010, 10:28

ragam-talam wrote:Re: the innovation in CM discussion...
1. I felt it meandered around a bit too much, veering off topic several times. The compere should have provided more focus to the discussion.

A lot of time was spent on the semantics of the word "innovation" which ended up detracting from the discussion. Was there a compere on the panel? Or did you mean Ritvik?

2. One thing I noticed was how nobody actually talked about examples of a few innovations in CM!

What I found interesting was no one was willing to own up to their innovation. The panelists seem to treat "innovation" itself as only what someone else was doing. May be it was their modesty.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 23 Aug 2010, 11:07

Babu wrote:Thanks Rithwik for the great service and I am watching and listening to Veena Gayathiri's Veena concert at this very moment in Texas. Good quality streaming. I also heard partly the discussions with Mrs. Charumathi Ramachandran and Sri. Cleveland Sundaram in the panel. Thought I saw a prominent recording engineer. I could not recognize the others. I did not fully catch their discussions on recordings and one of them said one can enjoy recordings despite disturbances. Can somebody elaborate the gist of the discussions ? Regards

The other panelists were:

Subhashree Thanikachalam (Jaya TV)
Anil Srinivasan (Pianist)
Suresh Gopalan (Charsur)
Pradeep Kumar (Vocalist)

Some notable moments during the discussion:

1. Vid. Charumathi stated that adopting CM as a career was a sacrifice in itself and the time and energy invested far outweighed the rewards . Pradeep Kumar simply disagreed. It would have been nice if he could have elaborated a bit on why he disagreed.

2. Subhashree was angry with parents who just wanted their children to learn a few kritis so they could win TV competitions. She was deluged with such calls for advice. Anil was sympathetic to her feelings. Both Charumathi and Cleveland Sundaram felt it was okay as long as the child learns a few kritis at least with this pretext. A parent from the audience took issue with Subhashree and there was a back-and-forth for a couple of minutes with only one side having the benefit of a microphone.

3. Suresh Gopalan declared his efforts to clean up the audio quality of old recordings and present them in more polished form for posterity. Cleveland Sundaram felt that the audio quality did not detract from the content in any way and was not a significant barrier to the appreciation of CM.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 23 Aug 2010, 11:32

sureshvv wrote: Ajay Srinivasan (Pianist)

Anil Srinivasan not ajay.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 23 Aug 2010, 11:47

rajeshnat wrote: Anil Srinivasan not ajay.

Corrected. Thanks!

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 23 Aug 2010, 13:57

I had a chance to hear the discussion from voleti to MDR missed the SKR which was first .First of all congrats the streaming worked very well. I liked the voleti and Ramnad bit more than Somu and MDR as there was more content in the first two. I really liked the way Sowmya talked briefly about somu at the end , and also vijaysiva on voleti.

The powerpoint presenters for each of the 4 capsules were handled by junior musicians like Vidya kalyanaraman for voleti, sriranjani santhanagopalan for ramnad krishnan , JB keerthana for Madurai Somu and was that ramakrishnamurthy ?? for MDR.

These presenters can perhaps talk without powerpoint too(just like how sowmya who spoke beautifully about somu at the end for 5 mins) .After all each of you have no stage fear ,as you are all capable of giving concerts .One of the reason, I go to concerts as a rasika is to generally wash the sins that I commit by giving powerpoint presentations in the last 15 years at work

. Now powerpoint is in the forefront of discussions in carnatic music .Powerpoint reminds me of that kalyanAraman , not the tanjore s kalyAnaraman that i missed ,but that kalyAnarAman movie of early 80's where he sings "ayyayayayO mAraNdo pOChE , mmmm nyabagam vaNthiruchu"

. Make CM very very aural , visual not needed at all !!

In the evening caught a bit of debate , the discussion went without a clear focus . I wish Trichy pradeep kumar spoke little more when he said he did not agree, because I was also with him there.I particularly liked Charumathi ramachandran's one liner "1000 kutcheri equals one appearance in t v, as it has so much reach"

Overall very well done , yacm , you are taking it to more rasikas, especially all those who get a chance to hear and see only thru the stream. Having said all of this , it looks like as years roll by we are going to have two polarized set of musicians , one who can spin pulling sponsors and having one week of celebrations in music academy and participate vs the other who will be e l b o w e d out as they donot have these connections.

ragam-talam · Post by **ragam-talam** » 23 Aug 2010, 15:15

sureshvv wrote:I think:
Kokilapriya not Natakapriya

Suresh - thanks, corrected.

I was at the hall and the experience was very blissful thanks in part to the wonderful acoustics at MA.

Lucky you!

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 23 Aug 2010, 16:23

.After all each of you have no stage fear ,as you are all capable of giving concerts

It doesn't necessarily work like that: I recall being surprised to see an experienced musician actually shaking before stepping to the microphone to give a speech!

Enna_Solven · Post by **Enna_Solven** » 23 Aug 2010, 19:22

Thank you rithvikraja for this fantastic service! It is great to watch it live from thousands of miles away.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 23 Aug 2010, 20:04

This is not a small point, it is a major complaint.

Why have you spoilt the presentation with a useless banner at the bottom?

It is nothing you couldn't say on the site, and really ruins the appearance. Just because idiot TV companies do this does not mean it is acceptable.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 23 Aug 2010, 20:28

Nick, in case this helps, take it to full screen, the message goes to the bottom right and does not obstruct the experience that much.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 23 Aug 2010, 20:38

That's true, thanks...

But the bit-rate is nowhere near sufficient for full-screen. I'm not asking for it to be! I'm sure that would increase the organiser's costs a great deal. Already I feel what I think is sound "compression fatigue" .

But hey, for those of us who are lucky enough not to be thousands of miles away, the full-definition, full-bandwidth experience is just a drive away

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 23 Aug 2010, 21:08

>the full-definition, full-bandwidth experience is just a drive away

Yes, indeed

( But remember the entropy principle... There is still information loss, even in mike-less direct listening. Real full bandwidth/full definition/low entropy is when there is no separation from you and the music

)

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 23 Aug 2010, 21:24

There is still information loss, even in mike-less direct listening.

Indeed: a slightly deaf person, ie me, might even hear more from the compressed music with volume adjusted to suit, from my speakers, than in the hall itself.

By the way, content wise, which is far the most important, I feel that this as jugalbandi has just taken off. Before, it was Hindustani music with vocal support and Carnatic music with vocal support. The left side of the stage... and the right side of the stage. As a conversation, it was a bit like one person doing most of the talking, while the other occasionally interjects, "Oh, right, yes...". Not enough interaction between all the artists on the stage. I was disappointed seeing the tabla take no part in the thani, but then, at least, the mridangam and kanjira joined with the tabla some time later in a further solo.

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 24 Aug 2010, 07:47

Nick, I agree with you regarding the irritating banner !

rithvikraja · Post by **rithvikraja** » 24 Aug 2010, 18:16

Just a few numbers:

YACM has achieved the following through online streaming:

An average of over 2700 unique visitors per hour with 3782 per hour being the maximum.
Flat hits with more than 18,000 clicks from over 32 countries.

Day 1 - 16,732 Clicks
Day 2 - 18,355 Clicks
Day 3 - 19,753 Clicks

And the main countries, apart from India, following the YACM Anniversary are (in maximum viewership order):

USA
AUstralia
Singapore
New Zealand
UK
Finland
Germany
Middle East

@ Bilahari - the 28th Concert will be webcasted for sure.
@ Rajani, Babu, Vasanthakokilam, Enna_Solven - Thank you so much. One of the goals of YACM is to take Carnatic Music to the masses.
@ Nick H - Weâ€™l look into the video monitoring guys chatting through. They need to coordinate between camera angles but ill cut their feed off. And as you said for those of you who are lucky not to be thousands of miles away, Music Academy is right here.
@ sureshvv - We are looking at streaming these videos only for these 9 days. We are also thinking about having a few programmes for â€˜on demand viewingâ€™ after the anniversary celebrations.
@ ragam-thalam - You can email us at [email protected] with your questions and weâ€™l make sure that your question is put forward. We also have Q&A sessions after every concert. So send in qsns to performers too.
@ rajeshnat - Yes. That was Ramakrishnan Murthy talking about MDR.

Do keep your suggestions and comments coming in

Thanks

Rithvik

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 24 Aug 2010, 18:21

Am enjoying watching Prasanna Venkataraman - he sure is a mini SanjaySub!

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 24 Aug 2010, 18:26

rithvikraja wrote: An average of over 2700 unique visitors per hour with 3782 per hour being the maximum.
Flat hits with more than 18,000 clicks from over 32 countries.

Day 1 - 16,732 Clicks
Day 2 - 18,355 Clicks
Day 3 - 19,753 Clicks

Very nice of you to share the click stream data.

rithvikraja · Post by **rithvikraja** » 24 Aug 2010, 19:10

Find a chat window below the video streaming now. Feel free to leave your comments and questions to the artistes there! We shall get you the answers by tonight!

Thanks

Regards

Rithvik Raja

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 24 Aug 2010, 19:21

Prasanna sang a beautiful tODi. Thanks, Rithvik and YACM, for your efforts. They are well appreciated!

ragam-talam · Post by **ragam-talam** » 24 Aug 2010, 19:39

Summary of Prasanna's concert:
01. Asaveri varnam - Patnam
02. rAma nI pai - Kedaram - Adi - Tyagaraja - lovely swaras!
03. dhArini telusukonti - Shuddhasaveri - Adi (2 kalai) - Tyagaraja
(voice strain during alapanam and during kirtana singing)
04. SrI rAmam - Narayanagowla - Adi - Dikshitar
05. yajnAdulu - Jayamanohari - Adi - tyagaraja
(he pronounced 'yagyAdulu' - but pronounced 'ajna' correctly)
06. Todi - good alapanam, but voice sounded strained again
enduku daya - M.chapu - Tyagaraja
07. Thani avartanam
08. Viruttam - kambodhi, kapi
pazhani ninra paraman tanda - Kapi - Rupakam (whose composition is this?)
09. naadi tEdi tozhuvaar - Bageshri

Overall, a very good concert.

ps: Prasanna sang a few Alathur brothers favorites, i.e. Rama ni pai, enduku daya. An RNK favorite: Yajnadulu. And an SSI favorite: Sri ramam. Nice!

ragam-talam · Post by **ragam-talam** » 24 Aug 2010, 19:44

Rithvik - you guys are doing a wonderful job! Hope you are building a yacm archive of these wondeful concerts and panel discussions.

And thanks for taking our suggestions onboard.

Babu · Post by **Babu** » 24 Aug 2010, 21:10

ragam-talam will be world record holder for coming up with the song list of Prasanna's concert with lightning speed. Thodi was indeed very good. Thanks

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 24 Aug 2010, 21:43

Great medley!!!
Thanks to the entire team!

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 24 Aug 2010, 21:55

Boring old me can't see the point of medleys: if you are going to play a song, play it, don't give it a few seconds with fifteen other songs. There might be a point when all the components come from one source, or even one style, but to flit from Beethoven to ireland to Indai and so on is meaningless.

That's just boring old me!

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 24 Aug 2010, 23:45

Nick, I do not think that Sri Prasanna sang a few snippets of these - I think what Sri PB meant as 'medley' was a 'collection' or, to use the forum lingo, 'list'.

mahakavi · Post by **mahakavi** » 24 Aug 2010, 23:55

I thought PB and NickH referred to the next team, Ghatam Karthik's ensemble (GK mentioned Bach, Beethoven, Mozart etc.)

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 25 Aug 2010, 00:21

Sorry, I was referring to Ghatam Kartik's Heartbeat, which I had just finished watching, which ended with a medley, and I thought that is what PB was talking about.

Otherwise.... crossed lines...

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 25 Aug 2010, 02:39

Just about when they started on that final piece, the stream went out for me and I did not get to hear that medley.

Sathya did a good job and so did everyone else.

Kartik's has a nice voice and can sing reasonably well but not consistently. But he is a good director and leader of the group.