Sangeetha Sivakumar - San Diego - 18th Nov 2011

[bilahari]

Sangeetha Sivakumar - Vocal
Akkarai Subhalakshmi - Violin
Melakkaveri Balaji - Mrudangam

San Diego Neurosciences Institute
Duration: 3h

Approximate Songlist:

01. cani tODi tEvE (S @ pallavi) - harikAmbOji - Adi - T
02. Ananda naTana prakAsam - kEdAram - miSra cApu - MD
03. tsalakalallalADu (R, S @ illalO) - Arabhi - Adi - T
04. gOpAnandana valaripu - bhUSavali - Adi - ST

05. vazhi maRaittirukkudE (R, N @ uTRu pARkka saTRu vilagAdO mADo, S, T) - tODi -Adi - GKB
06. rAgam tAnam pallavi - pantuvarALi - tiSra tripuTa (sama - 1 eDuppu)
pallavi: rAmanAtam bhajEham rAmacandra pUjitam
swaras in aTANa, sAranga, hamsadhwani

07. parulannamATa (jAvaLi) - kApi - rUpakam
08. bhAvayAmi gOpAlabAlam - yamunAkalyANi - khaNDa cApu
09. manatiRkukandadu murugan rUpam - sindhu bhairavi
10. kSIrAbdi kanyakaku
11. nI nAma (mangaLam) - sowrASTRam -Adi

Amidst a two-month interview tour in the U.S., I got an opportunity to listen to Smt. SS for the first time, and it was my first live concert since April. SS's voice was not in good shape initially and even though the harikAmbOji krithi was lovely, her voice was still warming up. Nevertheless, she sang swaras in two speeds with a good use of the tAra madhyamam and attempted to showcase the niSADam with phrases like N, N, N,, DPM, where her voice unfortunately did not cooperate in producing those characteristic harikAmbOji gamakas. She followed this with a vilamba kAla presentation of MD's kEdAra kriti, which was marred by frequent shruti lapses.

I was overjoyed to hear the increasingly rare Arabhi from SS. She sang the ragam in short phrases, which I liked - they added a certain "punch" to the alapanai. I also enjoyed her use of phrases like DS,,,ND with elongated glides to the shadjam, and the obligatory M,GR - N,DP - M,GR (tAra) was also inserted appropriately. However, the starting and ending notes of many of SS's phrases were still off-pitch, a trend that continued throughout the concert. I liked SS's swaras in Arabhi, where she employed several one-Avartanam patterns. MB's left side play really complemented SS's swaras here and I liked his anticipation.

I suspected a tODi main was en route, and it did arrive. SS's tODi was the usual, but many of her initial phrases ended with an identical gamakam on the gA, which became repetitive. I did like the way she combined brigha sangatis with gamakas. I have never heard GKB's kriti in tODi before, and SS's presentation of the kriti was THE highlight of the concert. She sang the kriti with utmost bhAvam in vilamba kAlam and it was very stirring. Her tODi neraval was also beautifully executed in the slower speed. Surprisingly, she transitioned from the first speed neraval to first speed swaras, and then began second speed neraval and followed that with second speed swaras. I quite enjoyed this mode of presentation, where the usually jarring transition from second speed neraval to first speed swaras is absent and there is a more organic flow to the concert. The tODi kriti and neraval were both handled very beautifully with great fidelity to sAhitya bhAvam.

SS then announced the usual "very short" RTP, which seemed to be a request (thank you to the requester). I really liked her pantuvarALi sketch, where she attempted a lot of brighas, and her alapanai was very classical, with none of the pUrya dhanaSri-isation that has become typical. The tAnam was standard, and the pallavi neraval was noteworthy for the brighas leading to the arudhi. I liked the hamsadhwani rAgamAliga swaras, but the RTP was otherwise too short to make a significant impression.

Smt. SS impressed me that evening with a staunch classical approach. There were few gimmicks and extraneous gamakas in her singing, and I admired that sparseness. She also judiciously combines brighas with gamakas in her singing, and she does not overdo brighas. There is a very natural way in which she uses brighas, which is admirable. However, her shruti played truant the entire evening, perhaps due to tour-related fatigue or illness, and that did hinder the effectiveness of her brighas and her music in general. While her raga alapanais were crisp, I did admire her kalpana swaras, where she rarely resorts to kaNakku and instead presents true sarvalaghu taking advantage of the natural beauty of raga prayOgas. This was especially reflected in her Arabhi swaras. Additionally, her kriti presentations place a lot of emphasis on sAhitya shuddam, and I enjoyed them immensely. Aside from her shruti problems that evening, I did sense a shortage of bhAvam in her singing. There is an unmistakeable weight in her singing, but aside from the tODi, the music was serious without being especially touching, though her voice problems and consequent inefficacy of brighas may have impacted this intangible and subjective "bhAvam" as well.

I enjoyed AS's violin as always. She gave beautiful raga responses and replied accurately to kalpanaswaras, with great fidelity to the main artiste's intentions. Her PMP-phrases in Arabhi, E/A cross-string play in tODi, and tAnam responses with beautiful S-S glides were especially noteworthy. However, as I observed last year, she has a distinct tendency to overdo oscillations in her playing. For instance, when SS sang a crisp R in Arabhi, AS replicated that with numerous oscillations, which was grating. Same with overdoing gA in tODi.

Melakkaveri Balaji played well, too. His playing was sensitive for the most part, and he anticipated SS's swara patterns admirably and played well with AS as well. However, he did try too hard to anticipate SS's brigha flourishes in kritis and there was significant discord between his strokes and her brighas. The tani was engaging, though the tALam seemed to become significantly faster as time went on. The three of them made a pretty good team overall.

It was certainly a pleasant concert, and I look forward to listening to SS again this month, when her voice will hopefully have recovered.

[rshankar]

Bilahari - Thanks for the review. Are you in India now? Will catch up with you later.

[bilahari]

Ravi, I am in Boston for another week before I head home and then to India.

[rajeshnat]

Bilahari
Just a thought here . We all write reviews after we get bit conditioned by how others have written bit just before in our forum . Also you had no problems in identifying the RTP was paNtuvarAli (not poorvikalyani). I am sure you get the drift there. So I see a different bilahari here then say a bilahari of a concert at kalarasana last year . As usual brilliant and very methodical review keep it coming.

I am particularly impressed with Vazhi MaraithirukkudE being taken as a main , lot of musicians take this lovely composition and leave with a wonderful neraval. Kudos to Smt Sangeetha Sivakumar in doing what she did , bit geeky needs lot of applause too?

[arasi]

Bilahari,
Your engaging and detailed review, as usual.
A mellowed-down version from you about the pa--sorry, pUrvikalyANi RTP.
Boy! Do they have to work hard, singing for their supper

Yes, I want to catch a cachEri of Sangeetha Sivakumar this time...

By the way, San Diego seems to be salubrious for performers when it concerns this particular reviewer

[raamkumar]

Hello Bilahari,
The RTP was not samam eduppu. It was 1 mathrai before samam.
Thanks,
Raamkumar

[bilahari]

Oh, thanks for the correction, RB!

[calicut]

Sorry to hear of Sangeetha Sivakumar's poor performance in SD. Her concert held in the Bay Area on Nov 20th was also very disappointing. She had similar voice problems to the ones described above, but in addition she slipped into apaswaram so many times that I simply lost track of how many. For a top level performer I certainly expect certain minimum standard from someone like her and the quality overall was pathetic. Some saving grace was provided by Akkarai Subbalakshmi's violin accompaniment but it still wasn't enough to lift the concert to a decent level. I ended up leaving after the tani when it was evident she wasn't settling into a better rhythm that happens sometimes after a rocky start. The contrast between her concert and the previous one I attended by Abhishek Raghuram (a few weeks prior) couldn't have been more stark. Perhaps he raised the bar too high!