Vidya Subramanian in Sri Guruguha Gana Saba, Srirangam,

[Shyamala Rangarajan]

Sri Guruguha Gana saba, Srirangam, organised a vocal concert by Smt Vidya Subramanian, disciple of Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman. This concert was held on the 12th Aug, in Sri Raghvandra Mutt, Srirangam.
Vidya, a Chartered Accountant and an MBA, has spent about 8 years in the US, where she was involved in spreading the knowledge of Carnatic Music using the medium of Internet, apart from giving concerts. After getting back to Chennai two years back, she is now getting busy in the concert circuit.
Vidya started her concert with a pada varnam of Lalgudi Sri Jayaraman in Shanmugapriya. She then rendered Muthuswami Dikshdar’s Sri Mahaganapathim (Gowlai) followed by Sri Thyagaraja’s Juthamu rare (Aarabi). Sri Purandaradasa’s Narayana (Suddha Danyasi) was the next piece taken up. At the request of the audience, she took up ‘Kanakana ruchi’ (Varali Pancharathnam of Sri Thyagarajar), after delineating the raga. Arunachal Kavi’s composition ‘ En pallikodeere ayya’ (Mohanam) was sung with bhakthi bhava. The main piece of the concert was Dikshidar’s ‘Balagopala’ (Bairavi), after an elaborate raga alapana bringing out all the beauty of the raga. This was followed by the thani avardanam, where Sri Koppu Nagarajan (Mrudangam) and Sri Ranganathan (Ghatam) fully exhibited their talent. A pasuram by Thiruppanazhwar set in Sahana and Brindavani ragas followed by a Lalgudi Thillana in Brindavani marked the end of the wonderful concert. Sri Govindarajan, the violinist, gave excellent support to the vocalist and his raga alapana and swara exchanges enhanced the concert value.
Te notable feature was that Vidya, did not refer to any written material. Her confidence, born out of her excellent grooming and ‘saadaka’ was so high that she had no hesitation to take up the Varali pancharatnam piece, which most artists are not comfortable with, when requested for by the audience. Vidya explained salient features of the krutis and the ragas and it was educative and well appreciated by the audience.
Vidya Subramanian, is another star concert artist in the making and we are going to hear a lot about her in the years to come.

[rajeshnat]

shyamala
Nice to see a review from srirangam. Few years back we used to get reviews from trichy area from a lone rasika whose id was sathya_vrathan (IIRC). Best wishes to vidya

[arasi]

Rajesh,
You are right. Satyavrathanthan is the name.

[mohan]

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/music/article3779084.ece

Report above and the Hindu review suggests that Vidya didn't refer to written material. I ntoice a laptop in front of her in the photo - I wonder if that was for lyrics, sruti, recording or webcam purposes!

ps. I presume Shyamala is The Hindu reviewer as well since both reports seem very similar!

[annamalai]

I do not think why there is so much fuss if a musician refers to notes for forgotten lyrics.

If the musician were to sing with disciples, then the disciples can help with the lyrics. When singing without disciples, I think notes can be helpful. Nowadays, there is so much emphasis on singing new / rare krithis and so, it is almost impossible to remember.

There is a concert recording, when a famous musician appears to have forgotten the lyrics (charnam) of Kanchi Nayike (asaveri) and the disciples also fumble and mumble. So, notes would have helped.