Saketaraman in MA 28.12.2010

[grsastrigal]

S.Saketharaman
Sangeetha Kalanidhi Umayalpuram Sivaraman
Nagai R Sriram
Giridhar Udupa

Chalamela-VarNam-Darbar

Sundara tara dEham-Pantuvarali-Thyagarajar
Swaram in "Sundra tara dEham"

Raga-Kamas-followed by "Seetapathe nA manasuna"-Thyagarajar
Neraval in "Prema Chuji nApai" and Swaram

Raga-Bairavi="E nAti nomu Palamu and neraval in
"sundarEsha suguNabrnda dasharatha nandana"

Tani

Bogindra Sayinam-Kuntalavarali-ST

RTP-Hamsanandi-Kanda jAti Triupta= Pallavi "Pankaja CharaNa, Sankata HaraNa,
Venkata ramaNa, pAlayamam sadA" followed in Sahana and "unknown" raga.

Smara sundra-Paras-Dharamapuri subbaraya Iyer

Teeradha viLayattu-Bharatiyar-Sindubhairavi, KaMas, Shanmugapriya, mAnd.

dheem dana-Behag-Tillana

Tiruppguazh

MangaLam.

I entered the hall after full crowd for the previous concert (Sudha Ragunathan) started
leaving. I skipped Sanjay in Bheemasena because of "jarring" acoustics and the tickets too
sold away at 7AM in the morning.

Saketharaman (SKR) is A M Raja (yesteryear of Tamil singer) of Carnatic Music. His voice
coupled with knowledge in raga took the concert to a "listening pleasure". His occasinal
smile on Shri UKS tricky "playing" of mridangam added value.

For acoustics, MA is one of the best in Chennai today. So it was a treat to listen to him.
Whether it is unknow kriti in Bairavi and RTP in Hamsanandi SKR gave his heart and soul to
his rendering.

But the problem is- his raga rendering lacks depth. There are certain phrases in Bhairavi
or Kamas which automatically deserves "aha"/"besh" were not there. When Nagai Sriram's
(Nagai Muralidhar's disciple) return had those, it was glaring.

His RTP had "Hindustani" style of Hamsanandi. He needs to balance the concert with kriti
selection. He cannot go on rendering Thyagaraja kritis and close the concert. Mix with
Differentcomposers or different Gods,kshetrams etc which will lift the concert.

Pleasant to see Shri UKS and youngsters like Nagai, SKR, and Giridar around him, He
proved why rasikas are after him. But this have another problem. Shri UKS did not give
enough chances to Giridhar in the concert except the 13 minutes Tani. Giridha is like
"yours obediently" waiting for Shri UKS to say "go".

TANI was too good to lisen.

Other issue

TM Krishna is performing on 1st Jan. Those who want to attend-remember it is a "ticketed"
concert. Balcony is only available. Rest is already sold out. But you can "see" this on
LCD installed at Mini Hall for Rs. 50.

[PUNARVASU]

Was under the impression that TMK is not performing this 'season'.
The disadvantage of 'viewing' the cutcheri in the 'mini' hall is, one is not sure if one could clap or not!

[shankarabharanam]

I had to miss this concert since I was leaving chennai that night. Did attend the previous one where Smt Sudha Ragunathan had done justice to Shankarabharanam and Reetigowla. I guess she didn't have time for RTP and hence sang a crisp brindavani RTP. Her main was Sarojadala Netri. The mridangam was too loud and some one needs to tell Mr Vaidyanathan that just by banging you don't need to show your dominance. And the violinist MR Gopinath was in bad form. He seemed to so nervous on stage that he ended playing Prati Madhyamam in Shankarabharanam. Unfortunately when your accompanists let you down, there is very little the main artist can do anything. It just brings down the quality of the concert though Sudha was in form during Shankarabharanam and Reethigowla.

[grsastrigal]

TMK concert is on 1st. Traditionally (!!!), the season ends on 31st Dec. So, TMK picked up 1st (at the request of MA) to perform on 1st.

TMK will also give 4 hours concert at the first week end at RaNi seethai Hall. You may have some more. TMK rasikas are for a fantastic treat !!!!!.

For me, you can better view this from LCD mini hall than watching it from balcony. You can see the smile (!!! of TMK and Sriramkumar's chemistry
with TMK CLOSELY.

About Sudha Ragunathan's concert- as I heard. It was not upto the mark.
Ritigowla was not good. She took RTP at 6.15 PM and could not justify it
before 6.45. Shankarabharanam was too lengthy... Her voice was not
co-operationg, problem of more concerts.

But Dr.Jaishree Ramnath, having accepted 3-4 concerts gave excellant
performance everywhere.

Again, I gather these from my close friends who visited the concerts.