Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna@Mudhra on Dec 23rd,2016
------------------------------------------------------
Vocal : Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna
Violin : Mysore Manjunath
Mrudu angam : Umayalpuram K Sivaran
Kanjira : BS SundarKumar
Concert Type : Nirvana - No concert to follow and Ticketed concert
Day/Duration : Friday -2 hours and 15 minutes concert with an additional 30 minutes for speech and garland
Sabha : Mudhra
Occassion : First Full Length Glass Mrudu angam concert arangetram
1. vanajAksha - kalyani - pallavi gopala Iyer
2. gajAnanayutham (RS,S)-chakravakham -MD
swaras for 6 mins
3. pAlaya mAdhava mAm - asaveri - ST
4. ninnE nammiti nayya (R N S)- simmhendramadhyamam - MV
11 mins alapana and 7 mins violin return
neraval for 7 mins in "pannagendra sayana" and 7 mins swaras
5A. O rangasayi (R S T)- kamBOdhi - T
16 mins alapana and 8 mins violin return
17 mins swaras
5B. tani for 29 mins
5c. felicitation by mudhra and radha bhaskar . speech by UKS on his glass mrudangam
6. vetta veli thanniL - folkish shenjuruTTi - kudumbai siddhar
7. dhirana thana dheem ta thirana - jinjoti - veena seshanna
8. nee nama + mangalam
Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna And Umayalpuram Sivaraman@Mudhra on Dec 23rd,2016
-
rajeshnat
- Posts: 10144
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04
-
rajeshnat
- Posts: 10144
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04
Re: Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna And Umayalpuram Sivaraman@Mudhra on Dec 23rd,2016
It was advertised atleast from 12/21 onwards for the 12/23 concert that Mahavidwan maestro UKS is going to play the whole concert for the first time with his glass mrudangam.Atleast I did not have the stress to scan The Hindu on 12/23 as I decided i will only go to this concert.Mudhra celebrates every concert in december season in a way and atleast one of them is a celebration of the artist and this year it was UKS.The supernova mrudu angam artist had his glass mrudu angam arangetram. UKS has practically broken all glass cielings-and the glass mrudangam was not broken.
Umayalpuram Sivaram after playing tani was garlanded by the mudhras and he also talked in his assertive style . He basically rehashed almost what he had told few weeks back in The HINdu coverage (which I posted link in UKS thread) about his glass mrudangam invention.
Sivaraman when he speaks about each of the artist at the end of the tani- there is a bit of indirect expression of truth. His words in my opinion has a well grained antha kAlathu tanjore talk- what we usually call in thamizhnadu a bit of veshama pEchu . There is this praise in valandai right and happily paired with criticism in his left handed toppi.He wished KBMK best of luck and he told he sings well . For Mysore Manjunath he called him villAdhi villain and praised the land of mysore .He praised sundar wholeheartedly that Sundar is the star and in his sentence he connected dakshinamoorthy- g harishankar and sundar. For me it was a perfect statement ,because in the last few years i am hearing sundar as a real top kanjira star.
KBMK started with the kalyani varnam. The sound setting was not balanced for the varnam. Mudhra bhaskar the most attentive sabha patron ensured and went around and did his best to set it right. The asaveri was nice but i still felt the volume of all the team was not in balance even for asaveri .
KBMK moved on to the MD krithi gajAnanayutham , the krithi rendition was nice but there was this overdose of volume and roughness from Manjunath violin.The roughness of Manjunath was a quite a constant. KBMK sang a lovely simmhendramadhyamam alapana- the influence of TN Seshagopalan like brighas and to an extent the style of briga ice skaing has a bit of overlap with Abhishek Raghuram.
The expected and most popular ninne nammi krithi was a nice and lovely classical rendition only from the standpoint of percussion team and KBMK.The violin bow of Manjunath was becoming way too irritating - nAdham was practically a real hard failed search . THe last segment of manjunath playing with UKS in swaras had an extremely blunt tone and I was wondering if violin is indeed a divine melodious vadhyam.
The main was KAmbODhi . KBMK sang the alapana and he sang very well with nice azhuttam. The sangathis around the twist of O in the O Rangasayis was not that perfect . UKS mama intervened when he started the swaras and I assume that UKS asked KBMK to only sing in keezh kAlam, possibly UKS wanted to have his most energy in tani. The swaras were well done and I have to really appreciate the creativity of KBMK in singing longer pattern with the cap given by uks. Post tani there were two shenjuruttis and it was nice.
UKS opinionated jokingly Mysore ManjunAth as a villAdhi villian. Atleast I got the message , I wish he pays a lot of attention for atleast basic violin nAdham.The naadham apart from kAmBodhi (thank god UKS stopped at the start of swaras to KBMK and ask him to sing only in keezh kalam) was really rough. The audience were mostly UKS rasikas and whenever for violin returns when UKS plays people were clapping , that was bit misleading to me when compared to the vibrancy - lovely sunaada touch of percussionist vs manjunath abrasive press
BS Sundar Kumar was fantastic , he has an extremely good control and when UKS mama told that like dakshinamurthy and G harishankar , he is a great upcoming youngster . I personally consider BS Sundar Kumar is the best kanjira player and UKS comment was resonating perfectly for me
UKS played with terrific anticipation for most time. But I could aurally sense a little disconnect when he played for few songs ,the left and right is not the same himalayan perfection.He has slightly slowed down in songs . However in tani he played with such passion for about 28 mins or so. In his speech he told naan onnu vasicha , sundar naalu vasipan, athuku apparam naan 40 vasippen - he told with his authoritarian style that only with my mrudangam I can bring this kind of excellence with Sundar and perhaps indicating in his tanjore sarcasm way that upapakkavadhyam is bit overshooting. For sure there is a lot of salesmanship with UKS . I guess artist can excel in many ways and if they always think that they are the best is a wonderful feeling for them to continue the art with the same drive .UKS even quoted the dasarathE krithi and connected thyagaraja and rasikas .
On the sound of mrudangam , I did not spot much of a difference between glass and the other natural mrudangam . There is a slight little metallic sound that comes up in glass mrudangam that i noticed a bit more . Is that incidental or is it because of glass mrudangam- i dont know yet.As I stated last week , the jackfruit can be still there as long as we have both the PMI and PSP type mrudanga nAdham. Glad that I was part of the first glass mrudanga arangetram. ON KBMK personally I felt his bad patch of voice with exhale to the microphone is nearly gone, but i also sincerely wish he has to pay attention to sowkhyam and bring less athattal which robs his musical content.
Overall a very good concert for 2 hours and 45 minutes with 25 minutes of speech and garlanding.
Umayalpuram Sivaram after playing tani was garlanded by the mudhras and he also talked in his assertive style . He basically rehashed almost what he had told few weeks back in The HINdu coverage (which I posted link in UKS thread) about his glass mrudangam invention.
Sivaraman when he speaks about each of the artist at the end of the tani- there is a bit of indirect expression of truth. His words in my opinion has a well grained antha kAlathu tanjore talk- what we usually call in thamizhnadu a bit of veshama pEchu . There is this praise in valandai right and happily paired with criticism in his left handed toppi.He wished KBMK best of luck and he told he sings well . For Mysore Manjunath he called him villAdhi villain and praised the land of mysore .He praised sundar wholeheartedly that Sundar is the star and in his sentence he connected dakshinamoorthy- g harishankar and sundar. For me it was a perfect statement ,because in the last few years i am hearing sundar as a real top kanjira star.
KBMK started with the kalyani varnam. The sound setting was not balanced for the varnam. Mudhra bhaskar the most attentive sabha patron ensured and went around and did his best to set it right. The asaveri was nice but i still felt the volume of all the team was not in balance even for asaveri .
KBMK moved on to the MD krithi gajAnanayutham , the krithi rendition was nice but there was this overdose of volume and roughness from Manjunath violin.The roughness of Manjunath was a quite a constant. KBMK sang a lovely simmhendramadhyamam alapana- the influence of TN Seshagopalan like brighas and to an extent the style of briga ice skaing has a bit of overlap with Abhishek Raghuram.
The expected and most popular ninne nammi krithi was a nice and lovely classical rendition only from the standpoint of percussion team and KBMK.The violin bow of Manjunath was becoming way too irritating - nAdham was practically a real hard failed search . THe last segment of manjunath playing with UKS in swaras had an extremely blunt tone and I was wondering if violin is indeed a divine melodious vadhyam.
The main was KAmbODhi . KBMK sang the alapana and he sang very well with nice azhuttam. The sangathis around the twist of O in the O Rangasayis was not that perfect . UKS mama intervened when he started the swaras and I assume that UKS asked KBMK to only sing in keezh kAlam, possibly UKS wanted to have his most energy in tani. The swaras were well done and I have to really appreciate the creativity of KBMK in singing longer pattern with the cap given by uks. Post tani there were two shenjuruttis and it was nice.
UKS opinionated jokingly Mysore ManjunAth as a villAdhi villian. Atleast I got the message , I wish he pays a lot of attention for atleast basic violin nAdham.The naadham apart from kAmBodhi (thank god UKS stopped at the start of swaras to KBMK and ask him to sing only in keezh kalam) was really rough. The audience were mostly UKS rasikas and whenever for violin returns when UKS plays people were clapping , that was bit misleading to me when compared to the vibrancy - lovely sunaada touch of percussionist vs manjunath abrasive press
BS Sundar Kumar was fantastic , he has an extremely good control and when UKS mama told that like dakshinamurthy and G harishankar , he is a great upcoming youngster . I personally consider BS Sundar Kumar is the best kanjira player and UKS comment was resonating perfectly for me
UKS played with terrific anticipation for most time. But I could aurally sense a little disconnect when he played for few songs ,the left and right is not the same himalayan perfection.He has slightly slowed down in songs . However in tani he played with such passion for about 28 mins or so. In his speech he told naan onnu vasicha , sundar naalu vasipan, athuku apparam naan 40 vasippen - he told with his authoritarian style that only with my mrudangam I can bring this kind of excellence with Sundar and perhaps indicating in his tanjore sarcasm way that upapakkavadhyam is bit overshooting. For sure there is a lot of salesmanship with UKS . I guess artist can excel in many ways and if they always think that they are the best is a wonderful feeling for them to continue the art with the same drive .UKS even quoted the dasarathE krithi and connected thyagaraja and rasikas .
On the sound of mrudangam , I did not spot much of a difference between glass and the other natural mrudangam . There is a slight little metallic sound that comes up in glass mrudangam that i noticed a bit more . Is that incidental or is it because of glass mrudangam- i dont know yet.As I stated last week , the jackfruit can be still there as long as we have both the PMI and PSP type mrudanga nAdham. Glad that I was part of the first glass mrudanga arangetram. ON KBMK personally I felt his bad patch of voice with exhale to the microphone is nearly gone, but i also sincerely wish he has to pay attention to sowkhyam and bring less athattal which robs his musical content.
Overall a very good concert for 2 hours and 45 minutes with 25 minutes of speech and garlanding.
-
varsha
- Posts: 1978
- Joined: 24 Aug 2011, 15:06
-
semmu86
- Posts: 960
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:39
Re: Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna And Umayalpuram Sivaraman@Mudhra on Dec 23rd,2016
A golden era at that, esp the DKJ-UKS combo!! Varshaji, am so glad i troubled you last week to dig up this gemvarsha wrote:uks from a different era
"marakkAdE manamE" is such a timeless DKJ masterpiece, again "Owned" by him, like in the case of so many other compositions.UKS Sir's accompaniment lifts this already DKJ masterclass to that extra couple of notches above, in the way only HE can. Such improvisation and embellishment while playing for the krithi!! And the thani avarthanam that follows in the extremely tricky "reNDungeTTAn kAlapramANam" is a lesson for ages to come!!!
Sorry for the digression from the original topic.
-
CRama
- Posts: 2939
- Joined: 18 Nov 2009, 16:58
Re: Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna And Umayalpuram Sivaraman@Mudhra on Dec 23rd,2016
I attended this concert. It was a great concert by KBMK and UKS. Dr.Manjunath violin was so loud and high speed.My nostalgia takes me to concerts where he played beautifully for TNS, VR, MVS etc in the ninetees. Now we have to think twice before going for any concert where he is accompanying. T.S Ranganthan, MD of Giri Trading Co came and on behalf of their firm, he offered a unique silk shawl with golden embroidery of Music Trinity to all the artistes. A great gesture by GIRI. There were many musicians, mostly percussion artistes in the audience. Watch the webcast.
-
Madras-Talkies
- Posts: 154
- Joined: 14 Dec 2016, 13:45
Re: Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna And Umayalpuram Sivaraman@Mudhra on Dec 23rd,2016
Nice review. I also heard that kbmk was in full form 