Cleveland Aradhana 2015:Gayathri Venkataraghavan

[maduraimini]

Sunday afternoon, Gayathri Venkataraghavan concert with Anuradha Sridhar on the violin.

This concert turned out to be . A concert never to forget. I always liked Gayathri’s concerts and try to go whenever I can. This concert I heard from my home, turned out to be the Best. It was so emotional - filled with all essentials needed for a wonderful concert. Added to this was Anuradha Sridhar beautiful violin strings.

She started with a beautiful sloka in Abhogi . I had to answer the phone and missed the song, which I do not know. I heard the swarams and they were beautiful.
A beautiful Alapana in Pantuvarali was next. After the violin, Gayathri sang Thyagaraja’s ‘Appa Rama Bhakthi’.
Then came my favorite , Raga Reethigaula. After the sloka, she sang Subbaraya Sastry’s
‘Janani Ninnu Vina’. I love this kriti. Gayathri sang this with as much emotion as the composer put in this song. It was filled with pathos, as this raga evokes. The chittaswarams were beautiful and Anuradha’s violin was as good as the song itself. I would say this was an award-winning song.
Then she sang Kalyani alapana followed by Sivan’s ‘ Chidambaram ena manam’.
Then came a Grand alapana of Kamboji. There are no words to describe it. Anuradha’s Kamboji was excellent. After that the artist said a few words about Sivan and continued with the Sivan song ‘Adum Deivam nee arulvai’. Niraval, swaram was good. The Kamboji alapana was out of this world. The Mridangam sound was very soothing. He went along with the song, with no big Upmanship. The Thani was very good. The mridangam ,Ghatam and kanjira artists showed their talent well.

The next was Sivan’s ‘Sodanai sumaikku veru .
I heard her start Thhillana- But the screen was gone and I heard children singing the Malahari geetham. All in all, the concert was wonderful. Gayathri Venkataraghavan with her wonderful
accompaniments did a superb job.

[rshankar]

Maduraimini: I'm having a wonderful time reading your reviews (along with Arasi's and Sundara Rajan's). I like your conversational style very much, and am sure that music and the ability to write well reside in adjacent parts of the cortex, judging by the felicity with which you and other members of your family, Arasi included, indulge in both!
Thank you!!!

[PUNARVASU]

The webcast was very clear, both audio and video being good. I watched most of it.

[mahavishnu]

Maduraimini: Many thanks for your review. Could you please edit the title and add "@ Cleveland Apr 2015"?

[Ponbhairavi]

Names of the mridangam,ghatam and kanjira artists Please if available

[rajeshnat]

As per cleveland website:

Gayathri Venkataraghavan (Vocal)
Anuradha Sridhar of CA (violin)
Thanjavur Murugaboopathi (mridangam)
Dr Ravi Balasubramanian of OR (ghatam)