Season Summary - 2015 - best of best

[rajeshnat]

Season Summary - 2015 - best of best
==================================
Being saturday had time to do this, others can also join with their views.

Here is a take representing the best of best concert in margazhi season 2015-2016 :
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The season of margazhi - 2015, was again a definite hit for me . I was very lucky , did not get any seasonitis(vicks vapourub) related problems with any of the artists- barring a loss of 2 weeks because of rains . Also I was quite lucky not to get any infection last year and pay more money to pharmacy companies. Attended 17 concerts for 15 artists, from the period of November last week to Jan 2nd week .Also attended one lecdem of mahavidwan Trichy sankaran.My definition of season is pre season where many sabhas because of lack of halls start before december and some sabhas take it till Jan 10th .

Personally attended only evening concerts and I had to let go of the budding stars in afternoon due to work and family responsenoability. Also did not attend morning concert and missed mature stars, to an extent my enthusiasm was there but I did not go with the same drive like years 2005 to 2014,work distance and restriction of concert for just one per day was the main reason. From next year It looks I will not even cross may be 10 concerts. INcidentally only the last year I paid the most for the concerts.

Best Varnam:
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Maharajapuram Ramachandran@BGS on Dec 08th,2015
1B. gana nAyakam (varnam)- sunAdavinOdhini - NS Ramachandran

And
Abhishek Raghuram@Music Academy on Dec 22nd,2015
1. nera nammiti - varnam - KAnadA - Poochi

best #1 or #2 (non submain) :
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Jayanthi Kumaresh@KFA on Dec 12th,2015
2. pancha mAtanga (R,S) - malahari - MD
2 mins alapana
5 mins swaras

Suryaprakash@Sastri Hall on Dec 09th,2015
1B. vAthapi gaNapathim(S) - hamsadhwani- MD
7 mins swaras

best submain:
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Maharajapuram Ramachandran@BGS on Dec 08th,2015
4. tsAla kalla lAdu (R N S ) - Arabi - T
10 mins alapana and 6 mins violin return
Neraval in ilalO sari for 4 mins
swaras for 6 mins

best no between submain and main- Slow Filler:
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Ramakrishnan Murthy@Mudhra on Jan 03rd,2015
5. Oru kaalai thooki - yadukulakAmbOdhi - MT

AND
ranjani gayatri@kalarasana on Dec 31st,2015
eppadi manam thunindadhO - huseni - AK

best no between submain and main- Fast Filler:
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Fast filler with long swara patterns is dying , Musicians are not confident of that ,Even few of my favourites who sing this did not sing long ones or just decided . As such nothing is worth calling best

Best main number:
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Abhishek Raghuram@Music Academy on Dec 22nd,2015
4. needu charana (R N T S) - kalyani - Pallavi Gopala iyer
19 mins alapana by abhishek
neraval in O jagath janani for 16 mins
4C. swaras for krithi 8 mins

AND

Suryaprakash@Pozhichalur on Dec 27th,2015
6A. kOluvaiunnAdE (R N S T)- bhairavi -T
19 mins alapana and 7 mins violin return
13 mins neraval in manasu ranjilla surasatulu
and 13 mins swaras

[rajeshnat]

Best single rAga RTP:
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None , I heard not even one.

Best RTP with rAgamAliga pallavi
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Suryaprakash@Sastri Hall on Dec 09th,2015

7. RTP in simmhendra madhyamam
32 mins pallavi
7 mins ragam , 8 mins taanam and rest in pallavi and swaras
pallavi line guru mani gAna madura guna mA mani nin pAdamE charanam parama
swaras in simmhendra madhyamam + nalinakanthi + darbari

Best viruththam:
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Nothing moved me that much, it was bit touch and go

Best Ugabhooga:
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Maharajapuram Ramachandran@BGS on Dec 08th,2015
7A. anayukaradharE aadimoola - dwijAvanti - PD
7B. started with bandugalO enadhillA (krithi is kandu kandu nee illA) - dwijAvanti - PurandaradAsA

Best Slokham:
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Ramakrishnan Murthy@Mudhra on Jan 03rd,2016
12A. slokham yogeendrAnam -kApi
+ sAndra nandava - bEgada??
+ nirmuktham - subhapantuvarAli
+ brahmatatvam - sindhubhairavi
+ parabhakyam - bHageshri
12B. sAgara sayana - bHageshri - MDR

Best tukkada(non viruththam/slokham or non thillAnA)
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Maharajapuram Ramachandran@BGS on Dec 08th,2015

6. mahAlinga vibhO (R) - shivaranjani - swamidayananda saraswati
2 mins alapana

Jayanthi Kumaresh@KFA on Dec 12th,2015
6. bhajarE yadhunAtham (r)- piloo - SB


Best thillana:
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None worth that great , pass it . Most of them were seeing watch and singing.

Best Tani and Accompanist support:
---------------------------------
Mrudangam : Patri Satish Kumar
Gha : V Suresh
in Abhishek Raghuram@Music Academy on Dec 22nd,2015

4B. tani for 18 mins Post kalyani main

Best Play (excluding tani) and Accompanist support:
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Trichy Sankaran and N Guruprasad playing for OST concert@Mudhra on Dec 29th,2015

Best Violin support:
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S varadarajan for Shankaran Nambuthiri@Mudhra on Dec 11,2015

Best Upapakkavadhyam artist:
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Ghatam V Suresh in Music Academy for Abhishek concert

Best Mrudangam artist:
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trichy sankaran in OST concert for Mudhra


Best Vocalist:
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Quite difficult to zero on one , i will let go this.


Concert of the season:
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There were 4 excellent concerts ramakrishnan murthy (4 hr)@ mudhra, OST@Mudhra, Abhishek@MA and Suryaprakash@pozhichalur.

The winner as a team was
Suryaprakash-DrNarmada-TrivandrumBalaji-KV Gopalakrishnan@Sastri Hall on Dec 09th,2015 - http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic ... 13&t=26494 . This was excellent to outstanding concert.


Non trivia - Canteen:
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MFAC Canteen is always the best for me. Hot coffee , taking personal orders like no oil etc, staff helping even charging the mobile .

Best sabha
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Mudhra and Pozhichalur for their extraordinary enthusiasm of putting music first than anything else ,giving more time to perform and having evening only one concert.

Heard for the first time :
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# Nagai duo in violin and Jayanthi kumaresh - both were immensely pleasing

Conclusively
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# All said and done , Season is overall great, more choices is quite a positive thing to me - pray for 30% cut and a definite horizontal spread especially in rest of the year .Look at the paper in chennai today ,only one concert on Saturday@April02nd,2016

# I thought it was quite a miracle for organizers,sponsors and artists to keep performing despite all the excesss amrithavarshi downpour- I wish i had heard atleast one amrithavarshini during rains . Chennai season rocked.

[hnbhagavan]

Good Summary.Why are u reducing attending concerts next year?

[CRama]

Rajesh, I was waiting for this season summary of yours which reflects an intelligent analysis- not only concert wise- but even song wise, their position wise.

I am analysing your analysis. Of the fifteen artistes whose concerts you heard, only six of them qualify for any shortlisting. Of that Maharajapuram Ramachandran qualifies for four items. I do know your liking for this vidwan and also your favourite vidwan Suryaprakash who has bagged the prize for the best concert. But It is strange that many other top vidwans did not qualify for any prize.

Some suggestions.
Ugaboga/slokam/virutham can be combined for one prize. Because all belong to same genre- only language differs. Further ugabogas will be sung only by a couple of musicians. I don’t know how many ugabogas you have heard in the season to award a prize to Maha Ramachandran.

RTP- Single raga RTP- no winners. I understand that you say that all RTPs had ragamalika swaras. Hence you don’t consider them in this category. But I would say you will not hear any RTP without ragamalika swaras. Not only now, even in the bygone era of the stalwarts it was like that. Very few singers skip ragamalika swaras. The artistes introduce ragamalika swaras to give various colours, and the audience also enjoys this segment. Alternatively what you can do is two categories of RTPs- Single raga RTP (with or without ragamalika swaras) and another category - Multi raga RTPs- where more than one ragam is taken up for elaboration and tanam and the pallavi itself is sung in a medley of more than one ragam.

You can also include a category- best Hindustani ragam delineated either in alapana or RTP swaram or tukkada segment

I, on behalf of all rasikas in this form request you not to restrict your concert attendance to 10 in the coming year as we are very much waiting for your analytical concert reviews..

[rajeshnat]

RTP- Single raga RTP- no winners. I understand that you say that all RTPs had ragamalika swaras. Hence you don’t consider them in this category. But I would say you will not hear any RTP without ragamalika swaras. Not only now, even in the bygone era of the stalwarts it was like that. Very few singers skip ragamalika swaras. The artistes introduce ragamalika swaras to give various colours, and the audience also enjoys this segment. Alternatively what you can do is two categories of RTPs- Single raga RTP (with or without ragamalika swaras) and another category - Multi raga RTPs- where more than one ragam is taken up for elaboration and tanam and the pallavi itself is sung in a medley of more than one ragam.

Crama Sir
Not every part I am going to reply as I dont want to sidetrack issue.In any case we will meet sometime somewhere and we can talk. In the past I am recollecting from memory I have given Best single raga RTP to Pantula rama (shankarabharanam - tattvaloka), salem shriram (gowrimanohari-ragasudha) and radha venkatachalam (kharaharapriya-TRS mama's MET). Possibly memory is shortlived for each of us. I am only taking Multi raga pallavi with the same criteria that you mention (either ragamaliga in raga and/or taanam and/or pallavi and/or swaras).

I prefer others to take thru theirs - squeeze your memory for a day and write .

[hnbhagavan]

There used to be a summary by Crama for Music Academy concerts.I am looking forward to it.

[CRama]

hnb sir, This year my season was much contrived. So I did not make any consolidated review.