Rocky Mountain Thyagaraja Utsavam, April 7th-8th, 2012

[ksrimech]

|| SrI sIta lakSmaNa bharata Satrughna hanumath samEta SrI rAmachandra prabrahmaNE namaha ||
|| SrImatE kAkarla vamSa tilaka tyAgabrahmAya namaha ||

Venue: South Middle School, Aurora, CO.

Over the weekend of April 7th and 8th, 2012, the Colorado Fine Arts Association (CFAA) and its Thyagaraja Utsavam Committee gathered rasikas and artistes from all over Colorado to pay homage to the greatest karnATaka sangIta vaggEyakArar, Saint SrI tyAgarAjasvAmi by conducting the Rocky Mountain Thyagaraja Utsavam (RMTU) 2012. This was a very well-attended and well-participated event. This is by far the largest RMTU event in Denver since it commenced 4 years ago and may be ever. This is the first time that RMTU had stretched over two days and hosted vocal, dance and instrumental competitions. There were over 180 participants in those competitions and over 200 attendees. The RMTU-CFAA team had worked very hard to put this big event together and executing it professionally and successfully. The best part of this event was that every individual performance took place as scheduled & on time. Hats off to CFAA for organizing it in such a disciplined manner.

This program was also introduced to the Denver public by Sri Ajay Menon and Smt Sharmista Ramesh through Colorado Public Radio and the Denver Post, respectively, earlier in that week. Here are the links:

http://www.cpr.org/#load_article|Indian ... er_Culture
http://yourhub.denverpost.com/aurora/la ... jQWRBN-ugc

On the first day, Saturday, the April 7, the RMTU kicked off with the instrumental rendition of chEtulAra SRngAramu (bhairavi), Smt Priya Hariharan on the violin, Smt Gayathri Krishnamurthy on the veena and Sri Kallur Prashanth Ramaswamy on the flute. This was followed by the ghOSTi gAnam of SrIgaNapatini (sourASTram), gurulEkayetuvanTi (gaurimanOhari) and the ghana rAga pancharatna kIrtanas. This was followed by the competitions in sub-junior (vocal), junior (bharatanatyam), junior (violin) and senior (bharatanatyam) catergories between 930 AM and 230 PM. The percussion solos and the individual performances took place between 230 PM and 6 PM. The main performance of the afternoon was by vidvAn Sri V K Arunkumar (student of Smt Seetha Rajan). He was accompanied by Smt Priya Hariharan on the violin and Sri Sriram Srinivasan on the mridangam. He sang two kritis: AragimpavE in tODi with rAgam, neraval and svarams followed by challarE rAmachandruni in Ahiri. The Smt Priya and Sri Sriram ably supported him in this short concert. Sri Sriram played a short and sweet tani after the tODi svaraprastAra.

On the second day, Sunday, the April 8, the competitions for the junior (vocal), junior (kUcipuDi), senior (kUcipuDi), senior (vocal) categories between 9AM and 1PM. This was followed by the solo and group bharatanaTyam and kUcipuDi performances from 1PM to 230 PM. The non-competetion category vocal and violin individual and group performances took place between 230 PM and 6PM. RMTU concluded with the singing of gItArtamu (sUraTi) and ni nAma rUpa mulaku (sourASTra) at 6PM. The some notable individual performances from the second afternoon included SrIkAnta nI yEDa (bhavapriyA) by Smt Priya Hariharan, O rangaSAyI (kAmbhOji) by Smt Gayathri Krishnamurthy, rAma ni samAnamEvaru (kharaharapriyA) by Smt Gayathri Ghankota and sItamma mAyamma (vasantA) by Sri Kallur Prashanth Ramaswamy on the flute. All of these fine local artistes sang a rAgA sketch before taking up the kIrtanA. It was also heartening to see and hear non-Indian artistes and students perform enthusiastically. Two pieces which come to my mind now are: a vocal rendition of heccharika gA rAra (yadukulakAmbhOji) in a group which had a young american lady, Ms. Michaela Perez (student of Smt Gayathri Krishnamurthy), and SObhillu saptaswara by Mr. Justin Kephart (student of Smt Priya Hariharan) on the guitar.

I had an opportunity to sing gurulEkayeTuvanTi (gaurimanOhari), the ghanaraga pancharatnam on Apr 7th, gItArthamu (suraTi) and nI nAmarUpamulaku (mangaLam-sourASTram) on April 8th in ghOSTi. Individually, I sang jAnaki ramaNa (SuddhasImantini) which I learnt it in the Semmangudi Bani from Sri V K Arunkumar. I was also requested to talk about and popularize some educative books by famous artistes and musicologists, like sangIta kalAnidhi T K Govinda Rao, sangIta kalAchArya S R Janakiraman, sangIta chUDAmaNi Chitravina Ravikiran and other vidwAns and viduSis, along with a senior violin vidwan, Sri S Panchapakesan from Kalpakkam. I felt very small while talking about these stalwarts and child prodigies. All I could say was that they are the best and their books always represent the best of karnATaka sangItam education.

Pictures from the RMTU can be seen at
https://plus.google.com/photos/11615809 ... banner=pwa

More information can be found at:
http://www.coloradofinearts.org/index.php?RMTU2012 and
http://coloradofinearts.org/index.php?rmtu-team

The results for the competitions can be found at:
http://coloradofinearts.org/index.php?R ... on-Results

I only hope and pray to SrI sItA rAma and SrI tyAgarAjasvAmi that the Rocky Mountain Thyagaraja Utsavam (or Denver Thyagaraja Aradhana as I would like to call it) continues to grow and flourish in the years to come.

I apologize for not posting this event earlier.

[VK RAMAN]

ksrimech: I loved the pictures which walked us through the entire program. Good initiative and I wish your future functions bring more talents and community.

[ksrimech]

Thank you VKRamanji. Yes, CFAA is doing yeoman service to karnATaka sangIta and the classical dance forms of South India. I too hope this event grows and flourishes.