Smt. Vijayalakshmi Subramaniam at Cary, NC on May 5th 2019

[hamirkalyani123]

Accompaniments:
Vidushi Ranjani Ramakrishnan (Violin)
Sri Vijay Ganesh (Mridangam)

Venue: West Cary Middle School

NOTE: Unfortunately I got to the concert hall 20-30 mts late after my son's graduation and hence my song list is not complete.

Song list:

Siva Siva - PantuvarAli - Tyagaraja; with swarams at pallavi
Brindavana saranga - swaminAthEna samrakshitOham - dIkshItar (Adi)
KaLAvati - kalAvati kamaLasana yuvatI - dIkshItar
ParidAna - bilahari - Patnam Subramanya Iyer;
Saveri - durusugA Krupa - SS - (Adi)
Nalinakanti, alapana , tAnam rAga mAlika (shanmukhapriya, mOhanam)
Pallavi - set to khanda Jati rupakam with Eduppu five after laghu with Lyrics - HanunatE bhagavate namaste sada Manasa, Swarams had vAsanthi, Siva Ranjani,
Purandara dasa composition - set to tune by Rajam sir - rAma nAma pAyasakE- Misra Basant Bahar I am told. Sounds more like pantuvarAli Hindustani version to me.
Viruttam in Sahana - nAda sukham - kanthamani - Koteeswara Iyer
Thillana - kuntala vArAli - MBK
Mangalm - AsatOma sadgamaya

The concert by Smt. VS at Cary, NC had all the ingredients of what a sheer traditional classical concert would be. Although as I said at the beginning I missed 20-30 mts of the concert, I did not miss much as the real concert started around then only. I was thrilled to be there when Siva Siva swarams were going on. The swarakshara prayOgam 'nI sadA' sums up the genius and creativity of Smt. VS garu. What followed was a soothing brindavan saranga and that too somewhat a rare composition of Dikshitar swAminathEna. The beautiful alapana showed her mastery over the hindustani ragas in general and Ranjani Ramakrishnan's version of the same showed her mastery over the instrument. It was a treat to listen to Smt. VS render this particular composition. In charlotte, one week before it was Sri swaminAthEna in Khamas and now it is this that clearly exemplified her authority over handling Dikshitar's compositions in general.

Kalavati that followed further showed her main theme of this tour where she particularly emphasized on presenting rare ragas and she presented yet another beautiful Dikshtar composition in this raga. What followed kalAvati piece was a fast but scintillating paridAnamichhitE in Bilahari at an exhilarating pace with neraval at rOkkamichutaku.

We were in for a real treat with the main item that followed with a beautiful saveri alapana and durusuga followed afterwards with neraval and swarams at nArAyaNi syAmakrsihanuta. Vijay Ganesh on Mridangam provided admirable support with a beautiful tani avartanam for the main piece. The RTP (Research Triangle Park) audience were in for a RTP (Ragam-tanam-pallavi) treat with garland ragas. This RTP is interesting in that the raga alapana was in Nalina kanti, but she present raga malika during the tAnam with noted ragams and she chose to present different ragams during the swarams after the pallavi on Lord Hanuman with Hanuman jayanthi round the corner this seemed quite appropriate.

With Viruttam in sahana and the nada sukham in Kantamani of koteeswara iyer was a real sukham to all the audience. The thillana of Dr. MBK followed soon at a brisk pace and concluding in a very traditional way with AsatOmaya sadgamaya tamasOma jyOthirgamaya exemplied how traditional and classical the whole concert.

All in all, an evening well spent to the delight of RTP connoisseurs. Thanks to SIFAA for organizing this and look forward to many more such concerts from them.

NOTE: Once I get details from my fellow rasikas about the first few songs that I have missed out, I will add them here. Please correct any mistakes either thorugh typo's or otherwise.

[rajeshnat]

Brindavana sarangi - swaminAthEna samrakshitOham - dIkshItar (Adi)
....
What followed was a soothing brindavan saranga and that too somewhat a rare composition of Dikshitar swAminathEna.
....
Please correct any mistakes either thorugh typo's or otherwise.

This typo is worth correcting , the raga is brindAvana sArangA. Let us not call it sarangi or brindavan and lose the raga to HM land.

[rajeshnat]

Nalinakanti, alapana , tAnam rAga mAlika (shanmukhapriya, mOhanam)
Pallavi - set to khanda Jati rupakam with Eduppu five after laghu with Lyrics - HanunatE bhagavate namaste sada Manasa, Swarams had vAsanthi, Siva Ranjani,
....
The RTP (Research Triangle Park) audience were in for a RTP (Ragam-tanam-pallavi) treat with garland ragas. This RTP is interesting in that the raga alapana was in Nalina kanti, but she present raga malika during the tAnam with noted ragams and she chose to present different ragams during the swarams after the pallavi on Lord Hanuman with Hanuman jayanthi round the corner this seemed quite appropriate.

This is VS other guru Taala Raaga Swaroopan creation . He sang this pallavi in Ranjani (Ragam and taanam) with swara ragamaliga in ranjani, kaanada and revati . Great to see RTP with nalinkanthi rAga , taaanam in shanmughapriya and mohahaam with swaras in vasanthi and shivaranjani. Kudos to VS to get inspired thru TRS and to dedicate a pallavi for hanumath jayanthi. VS has shown guru bhakthi to great vidwans S Rajam and TRS.

I see Andover , RTP etc giving tough fight to Bayarea , ny/nj etc . Mandate like music academy that you will give the cheque only when the artist sing a RTP in RTP .

How long was this concert ? .Thank you for your lovely review -hamirkalyani123 .

[rajeshnat]

Mods or Hamirkalyani123
CHange the title from Smt VS to Smt. Vijaylakshmy Subramaniam at Cary, NC on May 5th 2019 . Web crawling indexing happens better with expanded name.

[hamirkalyani123]

Thank you rajeshnat for the corrections. I agree with you. I took notes on my iPhone and cut and pasted them here. Some of them might have been auto corrected.

I also had it as Smt. Vijayalakshmi before as the title and for some reason or other it didn't allow me saying you are not allowed to post again or some thing on those lines. But now it allowed me to change it. It is indeed strange.

[rajeshnat]

I also had it as Smt. Vijayalakshmi before as the title and for some reason or other it didn't allow me saying you are not allowed to post again or some thing on those lines. But now it allowed me to change it. It is indeed strange.

There is a timer and window period for reediting the post i think it is max of some x hours . You did it on time before the system did not allow. Thanks for the corrections. You still have to let us know as how long is the Research Triangle Park concert?

[hamirkalyani123]

Oh my god I overlooked that. I think it probably lasted ~ 2.5 hours. I believe it started around 4:40 or so wound up around 7:15'ish if my memory is right.

[Jigyaasa]

Brindavana saranga - swaminAthEna samrakshitOham - dIkshItar (Adi)

Not sure of Smt. Vijayalakshmi's pAThAntara of this kriti but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLKZMiC68Uk links to Shri S. Kalyanaraman's rendition and if it's the same pAThAntara, that is definitely not brindAvana sAranga, it is brindAvanI

This kriti's authorship is doubtful and is most likely not Muthuswami Dikshitar. It does not align in rAga treatment or in quality of sAhitya with either rangapura vihAra or with saundararAjam.