Ashwat Narayanan for Parthasarathy Swami Sabha (30 Dec 2016)

[Vocalist]

Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha
2pm, 1hr50min

Ashwath Narayanan vocal
Vittal Rangan violin
Sumesh Narayanan mridangam
Harihara Subramaniam ghatam

01 Vanajakshi (varnam) Kalyani - Adi - Ramnad Srinivasan Iyengar
02 Ragarathna - Reethigowla - Rupakam - T (S)
03 Pahi Parvatha - Arabhi - Adi - ST (R,N,S)
04 Pahimam Bruhanayike - Huseni - Rupakam - ST (r)
05 Vidajaladhura - Janaranjani - Adi - T (s)
06 Yemi Jesithe - Thodi - Misrachapu - T (R,N,S,T)
07 Kaliyugadhalli - Senchurutti - Adi - PD

Except for his generally open throated style of singing and brief flashes of the vocalist's talent during the Arabhi alapana and extremely speedy swaras in Janaranjani, this concert had nothing more to offer in the positives. It was a significantly under par performance for me. I also felt the vocalist could have made more of an effort to showcase his repertoire rather than limit it to the items he selected today: better and more thoughtful planning was needed given the location and audience.

There were many people in the audience who visibly fell asleep during various intervals. I waited for some form of brilliance from the violinist as I knew he (like Ashwath) has potential, but my wait was in vain today. The mridangist played with too little sense of loud and soft throughout the concert and the thani avarthanam was possibly the worst of the season. There were many moments where the artists lacked proper coordination. The artists despite appearing to enjoy each other's company were not comfortable on stage - in fact, possibly dehydrated.

The mridangist asked for water during the boring Thodi alapana (which is shocking for me as Thodi almost always doesn't fail to impress me, yet this was plain boring). The vocalist also committed the so-called sin of stopping that alapana midway to drink water then resuming - but I don't mind this so much as I prefer sip of water to a voice which does not cooperate or is strained unnecessarily.

The sabha itself lacked the ambience I expected. It was as if I could be distracted by just about anything, and given the performance today, it was just as well I had that opportunity I suppose.

In saying all of this, I am not dismissing the artists so as to suggest they are untalented or are unworthy of encouragement. But at the very least, today was not their day. The combination of issues described above contributed to that outcome. If they consider today's concert was a success, that may hinder their development.

Ashok Ramani's concert was to follow but I did not stay back to see. Sanjay's was to follow that - will be curious to hear about that if anyone attended.

[Sivaramakrishnan]

Well, I attended another concert of Aswath at Ragasudha on 25 Dec (4-6 pm). It was an excellent one with Bilahari as the main for 'Kamakshi SriVaralakshmi' (Dikshitar). Some of the other songs were Suryamurthe (Sourashtra-appropriate for Sunday), Neevaata(Saaranga) etc. His voice was in fine mettle and the young team consisting of L Ramakrishnan(violin), Thanjavur Praveen Kumar (mridanga) & Guruprasad (Ghata) presented a good recital.