Rasikapriya 2013 award announcement

[eesha]

Dear sangIthaprEmis,

On behalf of the global rasika members of www.sangeethapriya.org community / discussion groups, we are pleased to announce the Rasikapriya Award for the year 2013 to Sri N V Subramaniam. The announcement is usually made on the auspicious Diwali day every year, but this year it got delayed as we were reviewing more possible candidates.

Sri N. V. Subramaniam, a retired General Manager of Southern Railway, was chosen for his contribution as an organiser of some of the best concerts and lecdems in Chennai. As rasikas we are now enjoying the benefit of his labour of love. If today we have some memorable concerts of BMK, TSK, TNS, MVS, MLV, Dr.SR and the likes , the credit goes to organisers like NVS, Nadopasana Srinivasan. Their good spirit of sharing their experiences with the rasikas prompted them to organise concerts and lecdems of merit, sometimes even spending from their pockets. Some goodhearted people recorded those concerts & lecdems and made them available to us!!

The award function will be held in Chennai during February 2014 and the date will announced in due course for rasikas to plan and attend.

The award function will be executed through Gaanapriya Foundation

[cacm]

GREAT CHOICE FOR A VERY DESERVING PERSON WHO TRULY EDUCATED SO MANY! (WE were classmates from elementary school thru' college & rest of life! Another MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR WHO CHANGED MUSIC SCENE from East Tambaram)) VKV

[thanjavooran]

A very good selection. Well deserving personality. Congratulations to shri NVS Avl.
Thanjavooran
10 12 2013

[pattamaa]

He runs Saraswathy vaggekara trust and his son Shankara narayanan, based in Singapore is performing artist.

Congratulations.

[rajeshnat]

Congratulations to Shri NVS . Certainly a great person it is a great reward for him as he just touched 80. IIRC I read somewhere that he also knows to play violin , though I am not sure if he was a performing artist.

Vidwan V Shankaranarayanan
You have to pass our wishes to your appa.

[venkatakailasam]

You cannot have a better choice..

Shri Shankar recently celebrated the sadabhishekam of his father Shri NVS..

( Incidentally, my father's name also was NVS..)

[arasi]

Great choice! A seasoned organizer, rasika supreme, and a gentleman...
Congratulations to NVS in this special year of his life!

Shankar is a Rasikas.org member. His father's love for CM inspired him to nurture a love for it in his son who is getting better every year as a performer.

[cacm]

[quote="rajeshnat"]Congratulations to Shri NVS . Certainly a great person it is a great reward for him as he just touched 80. IIRC I read somewhere that he also knows to play violin , though I am not sure if he was a performing artist

He was a performing artist having accompanied TRS, MAH SANTHANAM & SEVERAL OTHERS. Actually toured N.A. with Dr.Radha Venkatachalam etc. While the rest of us played cricket& fried our brains he learnt Voilin! It came in handy when he started many sabhas on North, Hyderabad etc bec he could substitite for any truant violinist!
He was EXCEEDINGLY HELPFUL to artists esp bec he had a RED telephone he could delay the departures of trains not to mention getting tickets in last minute etc. Once I was scheduled to catch a train & was fretting in US Style during a TVS Concert & Thiruparkadal Veeraraghavan called me to the stage & asked me not to worry.He then told me about the Red phone in the train!.....
I wonder how many know the number of artists he presented at Saraswathi before they were known or given venues to perform in Sabhas. One of the examples is the Sangitha Kalanidhi designate this year. Actually having been involved with Saraswathi since its inception along with another mutual classmate Late S.S.Venkataraman (L.I.C) the idea of the organisation was PRECISELY WHAT HE ACHIEVED AMONG OTHER THINGS: 1) Present concerts, Lec-dems etc , which WERE WEIGHTY & SUBSTANTIAL IN to TERMS OF BOTH EDUCATIONAL& MUSICAL VALUE AS WELL AS INNOVATIVE. 2) Present promising Artists a start by presenting them in concerts 3) Present Great Artists in Great contexts like DKP giving a special Sivan Centenary concert & VERY SPECIAL THEMATIC CONCERTS for example taking a bunch of artists every year to Ettaiyapuram to celebrate Dhikhisthar etc.
I can go on & on about the GREAT& UNIQUE CONTRIBUTIONS OF NVS as well as Saraswathi but will let others write about it. :ymapplause: :-BD :ymapplause: VKV

[mahavishnu]

Congratulations and namaskarams to Sri NVS!

[Rsachi]

The unique benefit of joining rasikas.org is the chance to know such wonderful people. Just as one cannot even imagine how an MSS or PMI or LGJ scaled such musical heights in one life time, one cannot fathom the inputs to such sustained commitment, personal contribution and organisational acumen in people like Sri CACM, Sri KS Mahadevan, Sri NVS and I would certainly add the Parvathi family. And there could be more gems in this ocean!

[cacm]

Dear Rsachi, THERE CERTAINLY ARE! After I finish the LGJ posts I am hoping to start a new topic on some of them I knew starting with (Late)Sethuraman of Perambur Sangeetha Sabha (HOME TO THE MOST MEMORABLE CONCERTS I HAVE HEARD)and at least TWO such STALWARTS still are around (in this day of HUGE SABHAS); I am referring to Asthika Samajam V.Narasimhan & Nadopasana Srinivasan. THEIR role in nurturing & nourishing MALI alone is worth SPECIAL RECOGNITION. KVN & FLUTE RAMANI (Apart from many others) GAVE THEIR BEST CONCERTS YEAR AFTER YEAR IN THIRUVANMAIYUR IN THE SMALL HALL ON MADA STREET & THE MEMORIES ARE STILL FRESH IN MY MIND..........VKV

[Ramasubramanian M.K]

Congrats to Sri NVS--I am "EN VI OUS"!!! A good friend of our family--I have hosted him in NY when he visited with TRS in the eighties- a tireless,selfless worker in serving the cause of music--never got entangled in the Sabha Politics of Chennai,continues to run the Saraswathi Vaggeyakara Trust wonderfully giving a fillip to young upcoming artistes.Makes his annual pilgrimage to Ettaiyapuram for Dikshithar's celebrations --has never used his influence in promoting his son V.Shankarnarayanan--actually I came to know of the relationship only after we arranged a concert in NY for Shankaranarayanan.
May his tribe increase!!!

[rshankar]

Congratulations to Sri NVS!

[Lakshman]

Congratulations sri. NVS for a well deserved award. My best wises to you.

[eesha]

The award function invite is enclosed. We also have an interesting lecture concert on that day.
Accompaniments - MA.Sundareswaran and R.Ramesh
ALL ARE WELCOME

[arasi]

Eesha,
It's going to be a great evening for rasikAs, no doubt!

NVS being honored for his life long service to CM with a choice lec-dem too--which he would relish, I'm sure.

Wish I were there.

Hope many rasikAs turn up to honor him and to be with him on this special day.

NamaskArams to a parama rasikA once again

[rajeshnat]

eesha
The theme is quite a novel idea . Allepey venkatesan(AV) is an extraordinary communicator. With PSN summarizing with other three(venkatesan,suryaprakash and KBMK) it should be a great one . I was thinking since GNB and others with kanakku orientation not being included, with only ARI-MMI-SSI , can I assume the title as a study of neraval and swara patterns in sarvalaghu by different banis . May be u missed sarvalaghu there in the invitation.

Neraval and Swaras are so very dear to me :ymapplause: :ymapplause: . Will you record and share it with all of us eesha.

[mahavishnu]

Let me second Rajesh's request to share the event either through a webcast or making the audio recording available.
What a great and original idea for a lecture concert!

[KNV1955]

I agree with VKV Sir. Sri NVS has released several EQ tickets to musicians including my dad. Very helpful person to musicians.

[eesha]

While we will definitely be doing multi track audio and HD video recordings, at this stage we don't know whether the audio/video can be uploaded. There are many musicians involved and all their consent has to be sought.

So I suggest Chennai rasikas not to depend on any audio/video upload and instead attend this rare lecdem in person

And eventually if we get the audio video uploaded ,that will be a bonus

[eesha]

Hope to see you all today (1st March) for the award function and the lecture concert.

[Ramasubramanian M.K]

BEST WISHES FOR A GREAT PASSIONATE PRESERVER OF OUR RICH CARNATIC MUSIC TRADITION!!!

[Lakshman]

An award richly deserved by sri. NVS.

[srkris]

Best (belated) wishes to Sri NVS.

[eesha]

I have uploaded some parts of Rasikapriya 2013 award function held on 1-March-2014:

http://www.sangeethapriya.org/award/2013/index.html

I have started with Lecture concert Audio

The other bits (award function audio, video, photos, lecture concert video) will be uploaded in due course and will be intimated in this forum

[cmlover]

Thanks for the treat!

[vichu1947]

Great treat indeed.

BTW, this forum has not reacted at all for this great recording (except) cmlover !

[rajeshnat]

What a lovely lecdem by these 4 artists

1. PSN mama giving a lovely introduction and passing the baton to other three

2. ARI by Alleppey venkatesan:
--------------------------
I have heard in general Alleppey venkatesan where there is a consensus that he is a brilliant communicator .This is the first time i am hearing him speak. His concert personality is a bit restrained(having just heard just one concert) but when he speaks he shows me a different personality. Just stating facts about different neraval singing of ariyakudi, swaras in terms of packaging ariyakudi typecast swaras all useful info. Bringing innovations like 4 raga pallavi . venkatesan demoing with ragas like sowrashtram, mmg , tOdi are context sensitive. His punch liners where he says let us save the todis was lovely.

3. SSI by PSN and KBMK:
--------------------
PSN explaining kharaharapriya of SSI and giving the baton for KBMK to sing paluku paluku in two kAlams was nice. Also a keezh kALa swaras in dwijavanthi and taanam touching using kedaragowlai was giving a pointer of ssi handling .Also he sang a nice SSI typecast slokham ending with semmangudi special aravinda padamalar in kapi. KBMK voice did have a touch of roughness, perhaps he needed a bit more warmup time.

4. MMI by Suryaprakash:
--------------------
Unlike Alleppey venkatesan where there was more emphasis on explanations with a minimal touch of krithi rendition, suryaprakash singing more with minimal explanation was indeed welcome . Suryaprakash has a real spark where it was just anchored with mmi and there were indeed lot of fresh patterns of mmi undiscovered sarvalaghu. Particularly I liked the Kambodhi swaras and the brief pointer of suddadhanyasi.Also pointers of MMI taking up MVI and ARI style in mohanam alapana was nice contextual explanation. The best was indeed shanmughapriya ragamaliga pallavi swaras .I wish the mrudangam was heard more , but with a good vocal throw there was adequate justice .Personally There was a lecdem of his where he assisted vellore ramabadran sir which we had a discussion atleast a decade back(i think mahesh3 gave a small snippet of that in a newjersey concert) , but with me not having an access to that , this is indeed a great compensation for MMI bani - lecdem.

Lecdems in either english or tamil becomes bit boring but when it is tanglish it is indeed interesting as in general the power of conveying that particular phrase in that particular language is also manodharmam and it is indeed an asset . For eg alleppey venkatesan's usage of tanglish is indeed the best .

Tx - sangeethapriya team , next time add a sanjay subrahmanyan or sriram gangadharan for a GNB bani.

[eesha]

txs for the feedback, to do full justice, each bani should be for 90 mins each. We (Gaanapriya Foundation) are planning a detailed session in the future. Yes, GNB bani too should be covered.

Reg. the subdued mrudangam, the audio output for KBMK and RS were taken from multitrack recorder, which due to some reason killed the mrudangam track. What we hear as subdued mrudangam is what got picked up by other mics.

Anyway, I will be uploading the video recordings of the lecdem and the award function in due course and that will have great video and audio. It was shot with a Sony PMW200 professional video camera that is used for shooting movies !

Gaanapriya Foundation is also planning a series of other interesting lecdems from next month, more on this later

[mahavishnu]

Thanks, Eesha. I also really enjoyed the lecture concerts.
Look forward to the video.

[cmlover]

Don't forget GV can do a MS baNi quite well!

[rajeshnat]

Reg. the subdued mrudangam, the audio output for KBMK and RS were taken from multitrack recorder, which due to some reason killed the mrudangam track. What we hear as subdued mrudangam is what got picked up by other mics.

Anyway, I will be uploading the video recordings of the lecdem and the award function in due course and that will have great video and audio. It was shot with a Sony PMW200 professional video camera that is used for shooting movies !

Gaanapriya Foundation is also planning a series of other interesting lecdems from next month, more on this later

eesha,
Looking forward for hearing (not just seeing ) the video. May i know who played violin and mrudangam in this ARI-SSI-MMI lecdem series?

[mahavishnu]

Rajesh, from the invite I learned that it was MA Sundaresan and R Ramesh.