Suryaprakash@NGS Mini on Sept 01st,2013

[rajeshnat]

Suryaprakash@NGS Mini on Sept 01st,2013
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Vocal : Suryaprakash
Violin : Amritha Murali
Mrudangam : Kuduntai Saravanan
KanjirA : Hariharasubramaniam

Concert duration/Day : 1 hr 30 mins /Sunday
Concert Type : Non Nirvana ( concert to follow)
sabha/Hall : NGS Sabha Trust/NGS Mini Hall
Occassion : Shri Sathguru Gnanananda Yearly Homage

Year after Year there are 3 days earmarked for sri sathguru gnanAnanda sangeeth samelan . Artists have 90 minutes to perform and atleast on weekends ,concerts are lined up from 9 AM to 9 pm.I went few minutes late and I could hear from the second half of an immensely charged yOchanA in darbAr ragam. The swaras from the vidwan had a lot of creativity and the concert kalaikattufied .

The next number was a rare number where he started singing from anupallavi onwards.The rare poorvikalyAni krithi was Adishankarar pOtruvom(IIRC the composer is periasami thooran ) . With a real slow and vilambit start, I could notice Suryaprakash voice is indeed gaining more bass - touch of more masculinity which was not the case say 8 years ago. The submain in kedaragowlai was quite detailed and the krithi vEnugAna lOluni was sung with the real kEdaragowlai questioning assertion.This krithi in particular to the best of my knowledge is not rendered by gurus and paramagurus TVS and MMI- kind of sure departure from his prominent school. Particularly I liked the kEdaragowlai swaras that came in as a whole cadooble and was very creative,it appeared very spontaneous with a lovely return by vidushi Amritha.

The Concert being 90 minutes , it was evident there would be few cuts. From kedaragowlai he went to a short filler of HMB - bhavanEshwariyA in mOhanakalyAni . The krithi was rendered very well but historically I have heard him sing this krithi in a better fashion.

I was extremely impressed with his keeravani main . While 90 minutes can be quite an easy sail , but I did find Suryaprakash really giving all the interesting distilled sangathis in keeravani and he chose to sing a fairly detailed main(atleast in R ) . The pIdi's in Keeravani alapana and swara kalpana patterns were sung with the right heavy weight swaroopam . THe krithi choosen was kaligiyuNtE and the neraval was quite short .

Post main he began with a short gOwda malhAr (which did not interest me that much as it was too short), I liked particularly the non - tyrranical grandeur of this particular sindhubhairavi thillana with a nice detailed alapana. The thillana was composed by srimushnam raja rao sir and had a lot of interesting jathi and swara poruttam especially in the second half(kudos to the vaggeyakkara, he did not create a sindhubhairavi tyrrany tukkada).

Amritha Murali was excellent , her bowing had a real nice azhuttam and her responses were very sweet . She gave lot of space when the musician sang and indeed did not intrude with the vocalist . I particularly liked her last swara kalpana return of Kedaragowlai . She is surely inching towards her guru Vidushi T Rukmini in her violin support .

Kuduntai saravanan played well for the krithi and swaras . He has a lot of thavil like touches in his play and possibly with that I see him going bit hyper - some kind of out of bounds error especially towards the finish of the krithi. The kanjira artist was new to me , being a very short concert his role was quite minimal

I would have personally loved if Suryaprakash dropped one number (one of the two hurry kesa mudra numbers) and adequately given that time to say a keeravani neraval and swaras.

Post this concert also had a chance to hear vidushi A Kanyakumari-EmbarKannan violin .She started with her usual expressive virtuosity in gajAnana Yutam in chakravakham. Volume was high , but her creative swara patterns at the end was well done especially when Embar Kannan gave few lovely returns with his more natural tone of violin that I am accustomed. I left when she began with the second madhyamAvati?? number. Also post AK-EK concert, srimushnam raja rao gave his 90 minutes concert . I would love to know what rajarao sir sang in a separate post(if there are any forumites who attended).

1. yOchanA (S) - darbAr - T
2. Adi shankarar pAtham pOtruvOm - poorvikalyANi - PT???

3. venugAna lOluni (R S) - kEdAragowlai - T
6 mins alapana and 4 mins violin return
5 mins swaras

4. bhuvanEshwariya (RS) - mohanakalyani - HMB
5A. kaligiyUNtE (R N S T) - keeravAni - T
13 mins alapana and 6 mins violin return
3 mins neraval in bhAgavatAgrEsarulagu nArada prahlAda parAshara rAmadAsulu
7 mins swaras
5B. 9 mins tani

6. sArasamukhi - gowDamalhAr - HMB
7. thillana(R)-nAdhru dheem nAdhru dheem ... sri guru rAya sannidhi sEvita - sindhubhairavi - srimushnam
2 mins alapana

Overall a very good to excellent concert for 90 minutes

[Lakshman]

Adi shankarar padam is by Periasamy Tooran.