Sumathi Krishnan in London - April 2013

[jayaram]

We London rasikas have been fortunate to have had couple of excellent events recently of vidushi Dr Sumathi Krishnan. Sumathi is a senior disciple of Sangeethakanidhi R Vedavalli amma, and the high quality of the two events bore the stamp of the Vedavalli school.

1) Her patantharam is well-known for adherence to sampradayam, and this was brought out so well in the concert held on 7th April. Some of the ragas featured were Kannada (varnam), Sriranjani, Sahana, Sankarabharanam, Manji and Keeravani (RTP), with a few rare ragas like Kaikavasi also included. Overall it was a great experience. Sri AGA Gnanasundaram (violin) and Sri Padmanabhan (mridangam) provided excellent pakkam.

2) On 13th April she presented a lec-dem on Varnams, followed by a workshop. (This was a Rasikalaya event.) Sumathi presented lots of useful information on the topic, including the history of varnam, some of the important vaggeyakaras who have composed varnams, different types of varnams, and also a glimpse into some important varnams including a few rare ones, e.g. Todi swarasthana varnam of Ramaswami Dikshitar, where the sahityam is built entirely on swaras; Sriranjani varnam of Ramaswami Dikshitar that is a joint collaboration with Shyama Sastry, Chinnaswami and Muthuswami Dikshitar! ; and a palindromic varnam which is again a joint collaboration between the great Wallajapet Venkatarama Bhagavatar and Veena Kuppaiyer!
You can find details of her presentation here: http://sumathikrishnan.files.wordpress. ... arnams.pdf
After the lec-dem, she taught us a Kambhoji varnam of Ramaswami Sivan.

Overall, it was a treat to attend her concert and lec-dem/workshop. Smt Sumathi is an erudite, highly articulate, and excellent musician. She is also a musicologist of some repute, and has brought out a lovely little book "Muthuswami Dikshitar and Tiruvarur" - a must in any serious rasika's collection.
Coming from the Vedavalli amma school, Sumathi keeps a characteristically low profile. So, her performances tend to be rare, which is a shame. I would strongly encourage rasika friends to attend her performances, whenever they happen. She is indeed a hidden gem, as Cool-ji would say.

[Nick H]

Sumathi at London Bhavan

(And I am happy to have been watching my guruji M Balachandar playing mridangam for a dance arangetram, here in Chennai, this last evening)

[rajeshnat]

Usuallly we see smt vedavalli accompanied by sumitra singing in mike , whereas sumathi usually sings only to the ears of her guru.Jayaram , thank u for the informative pdf on varnams.

[nivedita]

Where in London was this concert held, and are there any more coming up?

[Nick H]

search for jayaram's previous posts. He is (or just has) also presenting a concert by Suguna Varadachari and it was announced here. I think his group is becoming more active again this year.

London BVB's coming events can be found on their website.

[nivedita]

Thanks, Nick! Harrow Weald, where Suguna mami seems to have performed, is almost walking distance from my place! I wish I'd checked the forum more regularly.

But great to know that there are concerts happening in Northwest London!

[Nick H]

What a shame you missed it. I was hoping there would be a review of that concert here.

Sadly, it took me twenty years to discover Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Having done so, I got to see so much more Indian music in London, and being a student there extended my intelligence network out in to the temple and Sri Lankan community. Including the arangetrams and the student stuff that I played in myself, there was, eventually, seldom a week that I wasn't doing or watching carnatic music

[Ajit Ramachandran]

Nivedita

Shame indeed that you were not aware about our organization - please visit www.rasikalaya.org.uk for future updates. Our next event features Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna, and we will be hosting his concert on July 6th in Ealing (at Beaufort Hall which is our regular venue).

If you drop us a note at [email protected] we can add you to a mailing list we maintain to share London based Carnatic music event announcements.

I just posted a short write-up of Smt Suguna Varadachari's concert in a separate thread

Regards,
Ajit