Kum. Aishwarya Vidhya Raghunath (NGS, 12/10, 4:30pm)

[VijayR]

Having landed in Chennai the previous evening, I decided to inaugurate my listening season 2011 yesterday with a 2-minute walk to
Narada Gana Sabha to listen to some new talent. In this case, it was Kum. Aishwarya Vidhya Raghunath. She was accompanied
on the violin by Srilakshmi Venkataramani and on the mridangam by Tanjore Praveen Kumar. I am nowhere close to being
qualified to write a full review, but here is a partial song list and some observations about the concert:

1. VanajAkshi - Kalyani - Ata - Pallavi Gopala Iyer
2. MArubalka - Sri Ranjani - Adi - Thyagaraja
3. ThyAgarAjAya Namaste - Begada - Rupakam - Muthuswamy Dikshitar
4. OrajUpu chU - Kannada Gowla - Adi - Thyagaraja
5. Raksha BettarE - Bhairavi - Adi - Thyagaraja (Main)
6. ???

Vocal reach: She has a good span/reach and was as comfortable in the higher notes during the Begada alapana as she
was while going low during the Bhairavi alapana.

Breath control: Was easily able to hold notes for long without losing breath.

Pronounciation: Apart from one awkward word-split (don't exactly remember what), I was impressed by how clean her
pronounciation was (especially in the Kannada Gowla krithi in Telugu)

Other comments: Her Begada alapana was a quite thorough exploration. It started to get just a tad repititive in the upper
notes, but she quickly realized this and moved on. This shows that she has a good sense of awareness.

Violin: Srilakshmi was quite up to the task in answering the queries posed by Aishwarya, but there were several squeaks from
the violin. That apart, her Bharavi alapana was especially appealing.

Mridangam: It was clear that Praveen is a very talented artist. There were a couple of issues though. First, there was a
rather steely sound to his mridangam that I found a bit disturbing at times. Second, in the Sri Ranjani krithi, he was caught
a bit off guard by the number of sangathis that Aishwarya sang (in the sense that he expexcted the sangathis to end and would
play accordingly, whereas Aishwarya would throw in an extra sangathi). He more than made up in the Kannada Gowla krithi
where it was very clear that he knew exactly what was coming next and played really exquisitely!

Unfortunately, I had to leave as she was starting the swarams for the Bhairavi krithi (jet-lag is a real pain sometimes!) However, it
was certainly an afternoon well-spent.

Digression:

Attended a lec-dem this morning by Prof. SRJ at Arkay. Wow, still in awe... What a treasure trove of knowledge! He was accompanied by our own forumite "vainika" (I had the pleasure of meeting him and introducing myself!). Followed it up with a 2:00pm concert by K. Dharini this afternoon at Brahma Gana Sabha. I have known Dharini from when she was little and it is really fantastic and such a joy to see her grow by leaps and bounds. Also saw a bunch of familiar faces at the lec-dem this morning and the afternoon concert... More about this in a separate post.