Abhishek Raghuram- Bahaii Center Bellevue-WA-10-22-2011

[Suji Ram]

Abhishek Raghuram
Vittal Ramamurthy
Trivandrum Balaji

nEra nammiti- kAnaDa- Ata tAlam –PSI –(R)
palukavEmi- pUrnacandrika- Adi-T
ninnE nera namminAnura- kAmavardhini- rUpaka-T (RNS)
marivErE gati- Anandabhairavi-miSra cApu-SS (R)
RTP- hamsavinOdini (R)
tAnam and pallavi in 4 ragas- hamsavinOdini, simhEndramadhyaman, tODi and rasikapriyA
pallavi-BMK’s composition – nigama sudhA vinOdini nIraja dala lOcani sada
tani followed by swarAs in 4 rAgas
muddugAre yaSoda-kuranji- Adi –A
bhavANi dayAni- sindhubhairavi-(R) followed by tiruppugazh
mangalam


A phenomenal concert!! I attended his concert 3-4 y ago and thought this youngster was excellent and we would hear good music in future. And today he was right there-what talent and control of voice!

I was afraid we would have an earthquake during kAmavardhini piece. Neraval at the third piece in the concert was just awesome! It was at anupallavi …ADi pADi….
Next was a calm anandabhairavi. It was great to hear an alapana in this raga, and the composition in a live concert.

Then came tsunami, with RTP in hamsavinOdini and 4 raga tanam and pallavi washing us all into that depth of the ocean of music. He explained the raga (which sounded hindustanish) and explained the swarAkshara in the pallavi. The ease with which he moved from one raga to another was really something. He sang swarams in all four ragas after tani which kept audience applauding.

Finally we had another wonderful exposition of raga-sindhubhairavi or bhairavi in Hindustani. He used the lyrics of bhavANi dayAni to explore the raga. Very enjoyable…

Overall I felt he is bringing new elements to presenting CM without compromising tradition. No unneccessary fillers. Every piece had manODharma.I wonder if he is getting trained in Hindustani style of singing too. Also probably learning some instrument which was evident in the way he was moving his hand as if he was accessing swaras spatially.


The violinist and mridangist were very much enjoying the singing as much as we were and gave excellent support.

[arasi]

Suji,
Good to get a review from you!
Sounds as though it was an explosive concert!
Don't know if he's learning any new instrument. Of course, you know that he's a very good mrudangam and khanjari player.

BhavAni is a stirring sindhu bhairavi song (first heard it from Parveen Sultana).

[mahesh3]

Just filling in a note from a friend who made it to the Seattle concert, who wrote down his korvai in panthuvarali, and spent time analyzing it after the concert.

So rupakam has 4 + 4 + 4 = 12 beats per cycle

The korvai goes:

7,7,7 + 5,5,5 (GRSNS,, RSNDN,, SNDPD,, + GRSDN RSNDP SNDPM) = 36
7,7,7 + 5,5,5 (GMPDP,, MPDND,, PDNSN,, + GMPDP MPDND PDNSN) = 36
7,7,7 (GRSNS,, NDPMP,, GRSNS,,) = 21
5,5,5 + 3 (GRSDN RSNDP SNDPD N,,) = 18
5,5,5 + 3 (RSNDP SNDPM NDPMP D,,) = 18
5,5,5 (GRSND RSNDP SNDPM) = 15

That's a total of 36+36+21+18+18+15 = 144 (which is 12 cycles of rupaka thalam).

The awesome thing is you would expect that one would normally just do 3 sets of 7s and 5s which would be 36x3 = 108 (9 cycles of rupakam) and still come to samam but for the last set of 7 Abhishek spontaneously changes it and adds one more korvai of 5s .. just too good!

[vasanthakokilam]

Awesome!! Neat structure and laya poruththam ( asesthetics ) there. Thanks Mahesh.

[annamalai]

this is the famous pallavi (without the ragamalika thanam, I think ) that Balamurali has rendered in the famous 1963 Music Academy concert - Balamurali - LGJ - UKS - Vintage concert. Hamsavinodhini is rarely sung - TMT used to render Charanam Bhava Karunamayee in Hamsavinodhini.

[sthyagaraja01]

Yes, BMK has composed such a beautiful pallavi!

A couple of key points in this concert worth highlighting (that haven't already been mentioned before):
- Abhi paced the concert well and interspersed the fast-paced krithis with bhava-laden renditions of slower, vilamba kala krithis. For example, after his rendition of Ninnu nera nammi with jet speed neraval and swarams, he chose to sing Marivere gathi which was a beautiful transition and let people enjoy the melodious phrases of anandhabhairavi. Similarly, he got in bhavani dhayani towards the end, just a spectacular rendition in sindhu bhairavi that was truly touching and Vittal followed suit with the violin.
- With the Hamsavinodhini RTP, Abhi helped the audience understand what he was doing at every stage. After the alapanai, he explained the difference (both in the arohanam/avarohanam as well as gamakams) between shankara bharanam and hamsavinodhini. He then explained the beauty behind the pallavi and how one can exploit the swarAksharam in 'sadA nI gama'. To demonstrate this, he sang just that phrase in all the 4 ragams (within one avarthanam) that just blew the audience away. What followed was an amazing display of tAnam, neraval and swarams as Abhi effortlessly switched between the four ragams and ended with different korvais for each of them. The swarams in rasikapriya are still fresh in my mind, three weeks after the concert!

Beyond all this, the most enjoyable aspect of Abhi's concert is just how comfortable he is on stage, his passion for music and how happily excited he gets when he successfully completes a complex sangati or a korvai!

[kartik]

Interesting, Simhendramadhyama and Rasikapriya are murchana ragas, were they rendered one after another?

[sthyagaraja01]

No, the order was Hamsavinodhini, Simhendramadhyamam, Thodi and Rasikapriya.

[mahesh3]

Interesting, Simhendramadhyama and Rasikapriya are murchana ragas, were they rendered one after another?

I guess you mean changing Sa with regards to the other notes is what u refer to as a "murchana raga"? Not sure if that's what Abhi was going for....but what's the significance if they are sung one after another?

[vasanthakokilam]

Hmmm.. And he carried that murchana sequence to Maryland with mEru samAna

Given the heavy vivadi-ness of Rasikapriya, I am sure there is more than enough of a contrast in flavor and rasa between the ragas that they can be sung next to each other without any issues.

[uday_shankar]

Interesting, Simhendramadhyama and Rasikapriya are murchana ragas, were they rendered one after another?

While this is a correct observation there is nothing "interesting" here. Ragas which are mUrchanas of one another, when sung with the same tonic/shruti, as is done here, are as different as day and night in every respect. There is absolutely no singnificance to singing them one after the other or far apart. For example, is there any significance to singinging Todi and Shankarabharanam, mUrhcanas of each other, one after the other or far apart ? On the other hand, singing Shankarabharanam and begada which have no such esoteric relaionship is far more problematic.

A famous pallavi, "sharanabharananai azhaithodi darbaraukku kalyani"...has three mUrchanas of one another and nobody - the pallavi creator, all susequent singers - ever even had the thought cross their minds that they are mUrchanas.

Finally, even when a mUrchana is executed, it often goes unnoticed because of the strong experience of the tonic/shruti in most listeners' consciousness.

[appu]

A famous pallavi, "sharanabharananai azhaithodi darbaraukku kalyani"...

You meant,

"sharanabharananai azhaithodi vadi kalyani darbaraukku"

[uday_shankar]

Yes, thanks appu .

[mahesh3]

Abhi sings Vasanthabhairavi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRESVqPi1I8

[kartik]

Nope Uday,I didnt just mean singing Simhendramadhyama after Rasikapriya, I meant the shifting of the tonic.Otherwise, there is obviosuly nothing "interesting". The reason I asked this was, in all the Simhendramadhyama alapanas, I havent heard a single one where the tonic was shifted to Rasikapriya, though I have heard Kalyanaraman derive Chalanattai from Subhapantuvarali, anyway, if he didnt sing it by shifting the tonic, then perhaps it was just coincidental, and I made too much out of it.

[mahesh3]

well, he did a brilliant, mindblowing shruti-bedham in the panthuvarali @ the end! I did not observe the shruti shift during change of the ragas...possible tho, knowing him