Let us start with Rajesh's mind reading which were spot on.
Lalita alapana and Hiranmayeem were indeed fantastic. In general, Lalitha comes across to me as part exotic part dreamy and part sombre and serious. Amrutha with Rajeev's excellent support brought about all those qualities and more in an integrated manner and it was a great treat.
Rajeev's nAdham on the violin is quite sweet and measured and his accompaniment was just in the right proportions through out. His dwijavanthi alapana/raga outline return was excellent and so was Lalitha.
Arjun's mridangam playing style is also quite to my liking. It is quite dynamic without being noisy. He finds a little place or two to sneak in like or 8 or 16 strokes in a matter of a second at the right time. This thani after the RTP was quite compact and enjoyable. I would say it was short, probably 8 minutes or so but very good.
The big gAgA I alluded to earlier came after Lalitha. I was not sure if there will be an RTP. So that was a good surprise. It was a raga malika thanam which added that much more weight to it. And her first raga change in the thanam was Mukhari. Her take on Mukhari in that thanam format was excellent which included an outline of a lot of aspects of Mukhari and Rajeev's return on that was equally great. That made my day. I think Kambhoji thanam followed that. Hamir kalyani pallavi was done very well and her tonal purity shone through here.
Amrutha's voice was in great form and she has a good range. A few times when she reached into tara sthayi Panchamam it was without any strain or scratchiness. She gives a lot of importance to the lyrics and proper enunciation of them without any mumbling and her pronunciation would satisfy even the pickiest one among us ( you know who you are
) who expect the highest standards in that department.
As you would notice from the song list, there were quite a few HM originated ragas. I am not sure how unusual that is. The concert started with the Behag varnam which she sang very well. We are used to hearing Behag in the thukkada section but this TRS behag varnam definitely creates a different and welcome beginning mood to the entire concert. The RTP was Hamir Kalyani. And add Dwijavanti, Tilang, Sindu bhairavi etc to that list. You would not be faulted for wondering if the concert had an overall HM flair with that kind of a song list. Not that there is anything wrong with that but the reality was it was all in the CM template in sense we are all used to. We should give credit to the team for making that happen.
The compositions in Pantuvarali and Malavi provided the necessary contrast in raga aesthetics and laya dynamics respectively. The kalpanswarams in Pantuvarali were quite noteworthy.
Amrutha's sruthi perfect singing seemed to have had an effect on a few who otherwise do not attend CM concerts. They mentioned that they will start attending more CM concerts in the future. A few people also liked how the three of them on stage interacted with each other enjoying each other's music. The small auditorium and a sound system set just about perfect with the right amplification created a great atmosphere, quite an intimate one which enhanced the experience.
The concert of close to 2.5 hours flew by with absolutely no slack at any time. It was a well organized and executed concert and it was highly enjoyable.
