Abhishek Raghuram - April 10th 2015 - Hindu Temple Of Greater Chicago

[vasanthakokilam]

Abhishek Raghuram - Vocal
Akkarai S. Subhalakshmi - Violin
Anantha R. Krishnan - Mridangam
Venue: Hindu Temple Of Greater Chicago
April 10th 2015
Organized by: Chicago Thyagaraja Utsavam (CTU)

1. Intha Chala, Varnam, Begada,Adi,Veenai Kuppayyar (raga sketch)
2. Maravanune ninnu,Arabhi, Adi, G.N.Balasubramaniyam (kalpanaswaram)
3. Ananda Natana Prakasham,Kedaram,Misra Chapu, Muthuswami Dikshitar (short alapana )
4. para lOka sAdhanamE manasA,pUrvikalyANi, Adi, Thyagaraja (short alapana, niraval, kalpanaswarams)
5. kaDaikkaN vaittennai ALammA, Begada, Misra Chapu, rAmaswAmy Sivan ( alapana, niraval, kalpanaswaram)
6. Sompaina Manasutho,Ahiri,Misra Chapu,Thyagaraja
7. lakshaNamulu gala srirAmuniki pradakshiNamonarintumu rArE, Suddha Saveri, Adi, Thyagaraja ( short alapana )

8. Kambhoji RTP, 'mayil mIDu viraindODi vA, vaLLi maNavaLA enakkaha vA", misra chapu
( 4 cycles of Misra Chapu for the pallavi line. Pallavi started Ateetam with respect to the longer beat of Misra Chapu. and the two 'vA' s were on the longer beats of the second and fourth cycle).
I think the distribution of syllables to beats was like this.

...|..|.ma||
yil mIdhu |virain|dODi||
vA..|.va|LLi ma||
NavALA |enak | ka ha||
vA..|..|.ma||
yil

Ragamalika pallavi and ragamalika kalpanaswarams : Varali, Ranjani, punnagavarali, kApi, Sindubhairavi
(corrections welcome on the eduppu, the above structure and the ragamalika ragas)

Thani followed.

9. Govardhana, darbari kanada, adi,NaaraayaNa Teertar
10. Idu thano thillai sthalam, behag, adi, Gopalakrishna Bharathi
11. taka tajhaNu dhImta, thillana, mOhanakalyANi, Adi, Lalgudi Jayaraman
12. Mangalam

Excellent Concert. The pallavi was quite brilliant. More thoughts later

[vasanthakokilam]

For a change, let us start with the thani.

Thani by Abhishek, that is.

When Abhishek signaled Anantha to take over for the thani, Anantha signaled him right back.. 'Why don't you play?'
Audience encouraged it, Abhishek decided to do it and Anantha handed him his mridangam.
The transition was quick, Abhishek just turned to his left to face Anantha, there were enough microphones on the stage to quickly position them one for the left and one for the right.

It was a sight to see and quite surreal. Abhishek just finished a mammoth pallavi and now he pulled up his sleeves and is playing the thani. Those sleeves would not stay folded up which he has to adjust, the ring he was wearing forced him to make some adjustments to his strokes but those are not even minor annoyances. He kept going and to my untrained ears, he played a great Misra Chapu thani , it had quite a few structures like any other thani, like a three times three repeated pattern with each repetition reduced in length etc. The nAdham he produced was quite good. The audience enjoyed it very much.

Abhishek played for 5 minutes or so and handed the mridangam back to Anantha. Subhalakshmi made sure the tala kept going unbroken.Anantha continued to play a brilliant thani. Somone who knows more about thani playing need to describe the details here but it sounded excellent. No one moved from their seats. It was probably for a total of 14 minutes or so and that much time for the thani flew by so fast. At the end, when Abhishek took the pallavi line back up, the audience went nuts giving the team a loud standing ovation with even some hollering atypical for a CM concert ( yours truly contributing to it ). Why not, it was a grand culmination of an almost an hour and a half of pallavi singing.

He commented that next time he should play the Kanjira and then immediately mentioned that it won't be that easy. He does need rest in between but once in a while Abhishek joining the mridangist with the Kanjira will be fun.

[arasi]

Kokilam,
We missed listening to him in Cleveland. IiCarnatic did not get his and OST's consent to stream the concert. A disappointment. So,I'm keen on seeing your review.

[vasanthakokilam]

Akkarai Subhalakshmi is a very sensitive player of the violin. There are quite a few challenges playing for Abhishek. He can at any time ask her to take over and it happened in the thillana quite a bit. And no problem for Akkarai. I do not know if other violinists do this as well, but a lot of times, I saw her moving her fingers even when not producing any sound. This probably gives her the alacrity to get on with playing on a second's notice. Her stage demeanor is one of being very involved in the concert even when she is not playing, very intently paying attention to Abhishek's singing and enjoying it. She did not get much chance to play long stretch solos for quite a while. Those short alapanas I wrote above can be termed raga sketches by Abhishek and he moved on to the song after that. Later happenings informed us that it is all part of the concert planning. Her first major solo was the Begada Alapana for kaDaikkAN and her alapana was quite enjoyable. Later on during Pallavi, she was an equal partner to Abhishek. Abhishek did a wonderful thing. After the Kambhoji Alapana, he transitioned to thanam seamlessly but gave it to Akkarai after a minute or so and she played an extended kambhoji thanam.

That switch was quite a thing to watch. Abhishek turned towards her to signal that intention which was a bit unexpected given he just started the thanam. She was glued to his singing and was absolutely still, and upon getting the signal, the fingers started moving ever so slightly producing the beginnings of that lilting thanam. That is the most charming and absolutely confident way to say 'I am on it'. I do not know the right word to describe such a thing, a related word is 'nonchalant' but that is not it. (Abhishek then sang a wonderful thanam himself, more on him follows ).

She gave wonderful accompaniment during the RTP especially during the ragamalika pallavi and ragamalika kalpanaswara following the path Abhishek was taking. That path was by no means easy or straightforward. She traveled that same path very well but with her own unique footprints. She let loose during the Mohana Kalyani Thillana. She was smiling joyfully as they took turns playing. It is of course a fun song and their demeanor reflected that joy which enhanced our enjoyment of the song.

[mahavishnu]

VK: Truly a pleasure to read this (unfolding) review. Sounds like an amazing concert experience! Would love to hear the rest of it; sounds like there are many of layers of experience to be shared.

It is no secret that I think Abhishek is the bee's knees. Look forward to their performance in the Bay Area next Sunday.

[kvchellappa]

Yes, we are listening to the concert! I can imagine as I have seen the two play and Abhishek is rather unconventional and fully into his manodharma when he sings. He follows up with the song after alapana many times as he is unable, as it were, to slam the doors on the flood of his imagination flowing torrentially. Eagerly waiting for the next instalment like in those days readers used to wait for the next issue when Kalki was writing Ponniyin Selvan.

[vasanthakokilam]

Now to the main act. Abhishek was sporting a beard which suits him well. I listened to him a couple of years back and I could definitely sense that the wholesomeness of the overall concert experience has gone up a notch or two.

And It looks like a variation in the format is emerging which is quite welcome in my books. There were basically two sub-mains and an RTP. The purvi kalyani and Begada pieces felt like equals (each around 20 minutes long). The only difference was that Begada had a more formal structure with an alapana by him followed by Akkarai. In fact I was wondering around the 2 hour mark if we are done with the main or that is up coming. When Kambhoji started, I could not be too sure it is an RTP, the confirmation came with the beginning of thanam. No complaints at all about the format. We hear of RTP only concerts that were prevalent 100+ years back and this format has that flavor with the big difference that there are some other fairly big pieces to go along with it. Even a two hour concert of serious weight can be done this way with 20 minutes in the front and 10 minutes at the back the remaining hour and a half to the pallavi plus thani. Anyway, that is a topic for a different thread.

Abhishek was just in his elements and produced a top class and brilliant concert covering some serious breadth and depth of CM. In spite of that, I felt at the end that given how things shaped up and the genius level talent in him, there is a lot more in store there that can grow and develop that we can look forward to. That is a great sign indeed.

Abhishek's voice was fine in the beginning but got better as the concert progressed. He gave a raga sketch of Begada before launching into the famous varnam. I am always wary of artists singing the charanam line with not so tight swara suddham ( meaning not just plain notes but keeping with all the Begada contours ). I do not really know why that is. Is it setup in such a way that the balance between great and bad is a fine line? A lot of renditions I have heard falls on the not so great side but Abhishek managed to keep it on the great side. Great Begada indeed.

Here is possibly another trend. ARI used to sing the RTP in the same raga as the Varnam. That practice seemed to have gone out of favor. When Abhishek started a Begada alapana again after a few songs, it took me a few seconds to convince myself it is indeed Begada given that the varnam was in Begada. Of course I am a big fan of Begada and the song chosen was also a great one 'kaDaikkaN..'. It was all good. The thing about Begada is it excels in both steady note execution on some notes and its characteristic Ma and Ni contours. And there are ample characteristic phrases involving both aspects. And it is an absolute delight when those are sprinkled all over the song and in creative extensions and flourishes of the artist. That is when you get the feeling 'it is Begada, Begada every where'. Abhishek produced many perfect executions of such things during kadaikkaN. The song has a few elements that laya strong vidwans would fancy, I suppose. Abhishek of course is a laya strong person to say the least and he bounced along those elements with delight.

We will see if he and others do this kind of thing more, namely, sing varnam and the main or one of the sub-mains in the same raga.

In between the two begadas were two other heavy weights. Arabhi and Kedaram. It looks like that Arabhi song was not known to the audience and even to the vastly knowledgeable CTU organizer Sri. Raghavan who is the biggest fan of Arabhi I know. Strange as it may seem, that song was as familiar to me as Vathapi. How come? This forum, that is how. Based on the recommendation by people here and handed on a silver platter by our member Varsha, I had a CD of GNB compositions sung by none other than Sri. S. Kalyanaraman. I had that on a repeat listening mode for quite a while.

Abhishek sang 'Maravanune ninnu' excellently. He seemed to have modeled it along the SK version but there were a few twists and turns of his own. It is quite a dynamic song and it suited him very well. At the end of the song Sri. Raghvan asked whose composition it is. Abhishek said in a very respectful tone that it is Vidwan Sri. G.B. Balasubramaniyam's composition.. My familiarity with that song is more a nod to our forum where such rarely sung compositions are talked about.

I remembered thinking during the last concert of Abhishek that it will be better if he mixes up the tempos a bit. No complaints this time. Ananda Natana prakasam did that job. What a brilliant composition it is by MD and it was well executed by the team in that leisurely fashion. This song and the 'Sompaina Manasutho' in Ahiri provided the necessary change in pace.

Given my own limitation in maintaining focus with long alapanas of Pratimadhyama ragas, Abhishek made sure that will not be a problem. It was a short and sweet Purvi kalyani alapana. 'para lOka sAdhanamE manasA' was sung in a quick tempo ( not super fast ) and I think that is just right for that song. His Kalpanaswarams for Purvi kalyani sounded quite fresh and original to me. Those are the places where Abhishek can let loose and is delightful when it works out well. It did indeed work very well yesterday.

After Ahiri, he did a sketch of a raga. I realized later that though I know songs in Suddha Saveri, I do not have a good conception of the raga. The song 'lakshaNamulu gala srirAmuniki' was also very new to me. I could not fit it in with my knowledge of Suddha Saveri and because of that in many places I heard shades of Arabhi. I need to listen to this song by others and see how it comes across to me.

The next hour and a half was a mini-concert in itself. It was the Kambhoji RTP set in Misra chapu. The alapana was in two rounds. Abhishek did the lower register where it is hard to bring out the majestic aspects of Kambhoji. Abhishek did not go for that, but to the more nuanced persona of the raga. While it was clearly Kambhoji, it sounded overlapping with Shankarabharanam in some essays. I guess that is the nature of Kambhoji in lower registers. He had to quickly reestablish and replenish Kambhoji ( this is all from how it sounded to me, not based on any technical aspects ). It was a relatively short essay and handed it to Subhalakshmi with the alapana in the middle register. She started with the more usual Kambhoji, the majestic personality. She did very well. When she handed it back to Abhishek, he was all primed to go full blast on it. None of that caressing stuff which risks taking you to the frontage roads but in this stage of the alapana he carved himself a wide Kambhoji highway and let loose. He sang his heart out.
And transitioned smoothly to Thanam for a few minutes and handed it to Akkarai. As described above, she made full use of that opportunity. Abhishek followed with his own excellent thanam singing.

The pallavi was in Misra chapu with the structure I had mentioned above. 4 cycles of MC were used for the pallavi line. If you imagine the two ''vA's on the beginning of the second and forth cycle, it is like a beam supported by pillars at those points with two lengths in the middle and one length sticking out at each end. ( -------[]--------------[]------- ). I do not know if you all think of the RTP stress points this way. In a more typical single arudhi setup that fulcrum point is in the middle. This structure created a sense of more stability. Anyway, that is just the play ground the team needed to put up an excellent pallavi singing with all three contributing to the success of it. The pallavi was sung as ragamalika and then transitioned into kalpanaswarams which were in ragamalika as well. It was a grand affair. I think he did the pratiloma/anuloma type of thing ( I hear them as singing at a slower tempo and then singing at a faster tempo than normal, I am sure there is lot more to it but we will leave it to the practitioners). Those sections were done in a ragamalika fashion as well. I wrote above that the path paved by Abhishek was not easy or straightforward. It definitely was not. There were rhythmic variations here and there and even seemingly straightforward essays had more than one raga in them from the ragamalika set of ragas. Kambhoji also appeared back again once in a while. It was not a linear change of ragas.

Then the thani happened as I wrote above with Abhishek's participation in it.

There were a few requests flowing in throughout the concert and he chose Govardana giridhara, Idu thano thillai sthalam and the Mohana Kalyani Thillana of LGJ from them. Those are the thukkaDas but with Abhishek those are all pieces to be given his treatment! 'idu thano' was sung faster than usual so the aesthetics was different but given his creative spirit he does a lot of variations on it to make it truly enjoyable. And the Mohana Kalyanai Thillana is amenable to be given a super joyous treatment. And they did and that was a great way to end the concert.

It was an excellent concert.

[Rsachi]

Abhishek turned towards her to signal that intention which was a bit unexpected given he just started the thanam. She was glued to his singing and was absolutely still but upon getting the signal, the fingers started moving ever so slightly producing the beginnings of that lilting thanam. That is the most charming and absolutely confident way to say 'I am on it'.

In your serialised and ecstatic outpouring on the AR concert, the couple of paras you have written about Subhalakshmi are also very enjoyable, sir!

I wonder what a goldmine this violinist is. She has tremendous technique, extremely happy violin sound, razor sharp alertness, excellent stage presence, and a huge keenness to contribute to the success of the concert. She is easily the master class in violin accompaniment in a long time. To share the stage with the likes of Abhishek and Ravikiran and come off with singular praise from the audience is truly remarkable. GOD BLESS this wonderful lady Akkarai Subhalakshmi.

[vasanthakokilam]

Sachi, yes indeed to what you write above about Akkarai Subhalakshmi.

Finally some sundry points.

Abhishek was in a much looser frame of mind with some light-hearted banter with the audience and staff. After the Pallavi, he looked at the various request chits and said jovially 'Given the math professor in the audience, I think I will do some permutations and combinations and pick a good coherent set of songs to sing' (The math prof reference is to Sri. Raghavan, the gentleman behind CTU).

Earlier, there was a request from Anantha to increase the monitor volumes which the gentleman attending to the audio quickly took care of. And a song after that, Akkari petitioned to Abhishek she wants something changed. He goaded her to act on it 'avar kitta sollungO, uDanE paNNIiDuvAr'.('Inform that gentleman, he will do it right away'). The humor was in the way he said it which conveyed an exaggerated sense of knowing that gentleman when all he knew of him was probably from the prior monitor-fixing event. It may be that Chennai way of speaking that I found humorous. Then, after a few songs, he signaled to the same 'he will do it right away" gentleman and when he saw him hurrying towards the stage he said in Tamil jokingly, '(Don't worry) Mics are all fine... I just want that one light to be dimmed'

And last, there was someone who was trying to hand the artists a chit from the auditorium floor but the dais was positioned away so he could not reach them. There were a couple of unsuccessful attempts. Abhishek went into a problem solving mode and said something like 'Fold it and throw it, or wrap it in something and throw it'. The problem was finally solved with another gentleman from the front row coming to the rescue. He jumped and did a belly flop on to the platform and got it close enough to the artists that one of them picked it up. All in good fun.

[Rsachi]

Hmm. You seem to have had all the fun.

I just now thought of this: when God said, let there be light, I feel the conversation wouldn't have been concluded just yet. He would have had to explain, cajole, plead, admonish, and threaten that lights man. Same with sound. No wonder we have claps of thunder and lightning, all random and unpredictable. The light and sound guy must be still "fixing" it. Wonder why he doesn't take up study under the master "fixers" at IPL.

[hnbhagavan]

Akkarai Subbulakshmi is indeed a great violin accompaniment and even her duets are good.But the sisters want to be in vocal circuit and they had an afternoon slot in Music Academy.If they leave the violin circuit,it will be a great disappointment.

[kvchellappa]

Thanks for the classic review. Has the stuff to be turned into a story. Waiting when you would attend the next AR concert.

[shankar vaidyanathan]

Great review, vk! Enjoyed reading it. We will be attending Abhishek's concert this afternoon in Houston.

Re playing violin for Abhishek: Vittal Sir once said that you have to be very alert and on your finger best as Abhishek is among the most demanding vocalists out there. I have seen Akkarai Subhalakshmi playing with Shashank and have seen what you described here - the fingers seem to be playing in a mute or shadow mode and seamlessly taking over with that assuring control indicating she's on it all the time. I think being a vocalist must help her. Akkarai Subhalakshmi is a prodigy.

Re the "Thani" by Abhishek, I have a concert CD of T.M.Krishna (Music Academy 2004) where the team is TMK-RKSK-Palghat Raghu-and-Abhishek on Ganjira!

Over the years, as I listen to the live concerts and CD's of Abhishek, I used to get the feeling - don't know how else to describe it here - as if you just took a bath in a water fall (Tamil: அருவியில் குளிச்சுட்டு வந்த மாதிரி)- and the mood is generally very excited after the concert. I thought that he had the mastery and will mellow to a legend given time. I also see that he is adapting to the various schools - GNB, LGJ, SSI, and, others - with his unique authoritative stamp. He is among the current vocalists where the gifted voice does pure magic. Eventually, I think he will be in a league of his own - like Mandolin Shrinivas, Flute Mali and Shashank, and, the vocal & violin trinity - and I am waiting for students from his school!

[arasi]

Kokilam,
What an edifice of a review, with illustrations to boot to map it (well, I will call your pallavi structure explanation that)!

[rshankar]

vk,
That was very eloquent...you beat Rajesh with your multi-part review! Thank you...
Ramesh,
Bees knees - gave me a nice chuckle, for all I can think of when I hear or see that expression is the song down by the bay, and the bit about a bee with sunburned knees!

[shreyas]

shankar vaidyanathan, which TMK concert is that? Is it the one with Rama nee samana and the kamboji main?

[RISHI MANOHARAN]

Yes, in fact Sri Abhishek Raghuram played mridangam for Sri VV. Subramanyam and Sri Vittal Ramamurthy. It is on Youtube.