Suryaprakash@Karthik Fine Arts on Dec 25th,2017

[rajeshnat]

Suryaprakash@Karthik Fine Arts on Dec 25th,2017
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Vocal : Suryaprakash
Violin : B U Ganesh Prasad
Mrudangam : Arjun Ganesh
Kanjira : Trivandrum Rajagopal

Concert Type : Nirvana - No concert to follow
Day/Duration : Sunday/ 2 hours and 25 mins (ended before 9)
Concert Type: Free Concert
Hall : Mylapore BVB

1.seethApathi nA manasunA (RS, N, S) - kamas - T
neraval for 6 mins in prema juchi nApai
swaras for 5 mins
2. ini Oru kanam - shree ranjani - papanAsam Sivan

3. rAmA neeve gathi yani nirathamu (R) - shuruTTi - Ambujam krishna
7 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return

4A. nijadAsa varadhA (R N S T) - kalyani - patnam
17 mins alapana and 8 mins violin return
neraval in bhujagAdhipa shayana bhUmijA ramaNa for 9 mins
swaras for 12 mins
4B. tani for 11 mins

5. RTP in srothaswini for 38 mins
11 mins alapana and 9 mins taanam and rest in pallavi and swaras
Pallavi line was mahakavi line -- veenai yadi nee enakku mEvum viral nAn unakku
swaras in srothaswini + vijayanagari + kApi + darbari kAnaDA

6A. slokham vaNdE mAtaram ambikAm - sindhubhairavi + shree raja rajeshwari - Savaeri
6B. en annaiyin parivum anbum inRaRindEnE - saaveri - Rajalakshmi krishnan
7. vAzhiya senthamizh - madhyamavati

Karthik Fine Arts in epicenter mylapore has its own charm especially with the opposite karpagam mess to start with . They did a great job in quickly handing over the microphone and set it right for the concert to begin after 5 to 10 mins break between the earlier concert. The artist did it fast and did not lose time and started the concert to give more air time.

What a concert it was from the word go.The start in kamas with seethApathi was superb with arjun ganesh really rocking from the word go . If you have a responsive and fast fingers in mrudangam , the more earlier you throw a longer neraval and longer swaras it is better. The segue from sumain ,,, into shree ranjani with his diction was really superb .I have not got all phrases of ini oru kanam krithi when others sang in historic past and suryaprakash sang beautifully ini oru kanam with lovely support from the team with right thamizh pronunciation with zero musical loss. The first alapana in shurutti was very rare ,usually most of them take shurutti to close or at times a very rare main filler or a very very rare main . Personally he has not taken shurutti that much other than second half is my thoughtful guess. To have shurutti in first half with a detailed alapana is surely welcome . shurutti Alapana had its intrinsic rakthi and BU Ganesh Prasad played with gamakam with intense nidhanam and a right V V Subramaniam'ish press and azhuttam , The curves of shurutti is exteremly karnatakam and it came always that way. A rare krithi of ambujam krishna was sung and suryaprakash said he dedicates the krithi to Smt Ambujam krishna being a centenary year . He also said the tunesmith is K R Kedaranathan. I have not heard this krithi and this krithi does give a feel like ambujam krishna adopting a Thyagaraja + shyama sastri combo like approach. Better yet you can get foxed with this AK krithi and think this is like few Patnam subramania iyer krithis . Spacing of words were musicallly aesthetic it had many of the key phrases of a telugu krithi like neeve brova nannu nammina all musically creating zero obstruction for a shurutti to not get entangled in lyrical knot.

Shurutti was followed by kalyani , Approach of kalyani was bit leisurely for few minutes and then Grand New Baani approach was more felt in kalyani .Kalyani alapana nerval and swaras suryaprakash did sing with cascading sangathis one after another and his voice could traverse all octaves with ease and had nice polished brighas. Ganesh Prasad kalyani was well done both bugp and sp never crossed the lakshma rekha of bringing even a single sancharas with any hindustani prayogam .Kalyani is nowadays getting way too mutated with HIndustanish sangathis such a thing did not happen. I would have been bit more happier if neraval had more quanta in kalyani.

Musicians have to strive and leave a rich legacy in exploring ragas . Suryaprakash has done atleast 4 to 6 ragas with RTP in the last 12 + years . Jog , miyan malhar and s kalyanaraman dwi raga Suryashri , i forgot few more and all these I think he took it first into CM as a milestone and more importantly the RTP was a *detailed* RTP . Yesterday it was srothaswini as RTP .

With more details getting emerged to me as he sang srothaswini alapana and taanam , I personally mapped srothaswini to a feel of major suddha dhanyasi and possibly a touch of may be gowri manohari . Srothaswini alapana and taanam was detailed and had a near nattaikurinji RTP anthastu. I get extremly satisfied when taanam is sung in detail almost equaling raga alapana , For nearly 9 to 10 mins taanam was superb and particularly when I thought he ended it very well without mrudangam , then with mrudangam meter taanam in srothaswini was very nice .The percussion chief Arjun Ganesh was giving a lot of touches with gumkhi and I liked taanam mrudu play.

Mahakavi bharathiyar lines for pallavi is adopted by many , this line veenai yadi nee enakku mEvum viral nAn unakku was aesthetic with no excess words and the spacing was superb to give more pointed raga bhavam .Incidentally he maintained the muse perfectly in the same cluster emote zone of ragas .His cluster movement was from srothaswini to vijayanagari (has a bit of resemblence to emote queen shivaranjani) , kAPi and darbAri KAnadA (superb when he took a neraval dash and then swaras here).

What can one say about the two ganesh , one Ganesh was sturdy with pointed slow to medium paced rAga bhavam with right proportion as *prasadam* and the other ganesh was pointing with literally arrows of precise rhythmn like archer *arjuna*. Trivandrum Rajagopal also added great rotation , one has to give it to vocalist who gave longer cycles for kanjira to also play a lot more.Their firework patterns continued well with a great tani.

The last viruththam vandE mAtaram did end up with the krithi of Rajalakshmi Krishnan (our arasi) in sAveri . Arasi has given a nice krithi with a little liberal overdose of thamizh words and sAveri was nice . Incidentally I saw her towards the second half of the concert , we just talked briefly and both left.

BU Ganesh Prasad is more towards giving intense raga bhavam and he has lovely fidelity with a little more cautious pro madhyamakAla speed centric violinist . I liked his proportion sense and most importantly he was never intrusive and keeps straight bow for most of the times in songs. His play in swara ragamaligas especially vijayanagari where he earned most claps was well done. Arjun Ganesh is a spectacular and gifted artist, great balance of right and left . He plays with joy and never beats and gives a great volume control with omnipresent cushion effect so that we donot get a sensory overload . He was the major karanakartha to lift up the concert . Rajagopal gave great support and in kalyani his share was the most as there was more rotation where he played with the vocalist.

Atleast to me the concert was extremely unique with a detailed srothaswani pallavi . For those uninitiated with srothaswini You can imagine srothaswani as coffee with suddhadhanyasi milk as base ,with gowrimanOhari decotion and partially nattai as sugar . I just googled srothaswini ragam and I find references to only our forum viewtopic.php?t=8830. Looks isaignani illayaraja has made more use of this .You have to hear it , this rtp srothaswini is for the record books and came out well cooked and was not a touch and go snack bite.

Overall an excellent concert .

[arasi]

Rajesh,
When did I morph into Rajalakshmi?

Christmas, holiday crowds clogged up that already congested special spot of Chennai called Luz, and I was stuck in that area for nearly half an hour, missing quite a bit of the concert his kalyANi was so good. Nija dAsa was sung beautifully.
Ganesh Prasad rendered support in a big way. Arjun Ganesh and Trivandrum Rajagopal performed with verve.
.

[arasi]

Ah, and the RTP was more delightful than a mere cup of coffee for me. A delicious new comer to my list of rAgAs. Suryaprakash explored it with ease and with his rich imagination.