Ranjani Gayatri@BGS On Dec 25th,2021
----------------------------------------------
Vocal: Ranjani Gayatri
Violin : Vittal Rangan
Mrudangam : Sai Giridhar
Kanjira: Chandrasekhara Sharam
Tambura : two of them who must be sishyas??
Concert Type : Ticketed -Nirvana - No concert to follow
Day/Duration : Saturday/ 10: 10 am to 13 :20 pm
Hall : Brahma gAna Sabha rented the R R Sabha Sundareswarar Main Hall
Year on year in the season, Dec 25th and the closest weekend either preceding or following sat or sunday is a peak time of dec season for the CM celebrations. Around 2006 tp 2008 or so i personally used to wonder what is the crowd demographics of the season . I mentally think it is one third local chennai, one third rest of india with support Gulf Aus and singapore certainly with possibly bangalore making a big share , certainly the last critical one third must be mostly from USA/Canada . This is just my theory , with all the variants of virus threatening travel and unwillingness of rasikas certainly the crowd did not come that much to chennai for sure . I am also assuming one of the finest sabhas of chennai the Brahma gana sabha did not get their sivakami petachi auditorium to rent due to covid reasons(not hall rent) is my guess. 25th Dec now falling on Saturday has become the prime day for most concerts for sabhas to feature big artists based on crowd or the history of how much they know the sabha patrons . Dec 25th Academy generally feature Ra ga sisters , but this year they were dropped . I did see on Dec 25th paper that there is some thing called Sanjay Sabha and sanjay is featured in academy hall. Dec 18th it was put Sanjay Sabha at vanimahal .I am surprised how big institutions disrupt their brand and season with they giving even their halls to be rented for artists where concert sabha is featured the name of the artist. How can one artist be greater than an institution , likely V Sriram must have helped atleast in academy is my best guess .
SKGS took up with Lalgudi siblings in dec 25 and featured them in the evening 4pm slot with the great mrudangam star Trichy Sankaran. Sudha was featured on the same morning time as raga in SKGS but on that morning i saw the paper stating sudha concert was cancelled . As i walked in at 9 55 AM , i could see the beaming BGS shri balu giving tickets . I paid lowest 240 RS INR and as i was buying the ticket i told BGS balu sir , sir why you are prizing the ticket so high , you have to encourage more participation . How will family buy 4 tickets and come to sabha with such prized tickets. The answer came from One person who said nowadays people are spending in theatres and then BGS baalu(balasubramanian) Sir said , WE have Rs XYZ to pay for renting this hall for a day and i have to pay ABC for the artists he just told I could not yet not collect that much money . Personally i have come to realize that focussing on say 9 people coming for 100 Rs each is far more important then having say two 600 Rs ticket getting sold out and having 7 empty chairs . All said BGS Baalu is one of the sweet persons who has done yeomen service with BGS , he is doing his best despite not having the sivagami petachi hall not being rented out . More power to him in 2022 atleast let him get sivagami petachi hall in 2022, i recollect some time reading in 1969 they started with the first concert where semmangudi was featured. BGS takes some times arkays hall but they should have their home in sivagami petachi is my prayers.
I think a day back or may be in the morning before the concert the raga sisters both got the highest ranking award of BGS the gaana padmam of BGS
Over to Concert Songlist for 3 hours and 10 mins
----------------------------------------------------
01. sAmi ninnE - varnam - shree ragam - Karur Devudu Iyer
02. Naada sudha(S) - Arabi -T
swaras for 2 mins
03. dhanyudevudu (R,S) - malayamArutham - Patnam
7 mins alapana and 4 mins violin return
6 mins swara returns
04. enna punniyam seidhEnO - reetigowlai - OVK
05A. Meenakshi mEmudham (R N S T)- poorvikalyani - MD
11 mins alapana and 6 mins violin return
neraval for 9 mins in madhurApuri nila..YE mani vallayE
swaras for 10 mins
05B. tani for 19 mins
06. ninnu vina naamadendhu- navarasa kannada -T
07. RTP in Ragavardhini for 52 mins
16 mins alapana shared by sisters with 5 mins return in between by violinist
taanam for 8 mins
pallavi line was kalangAdhE manamE vElavanE .. thunai dhinamE nee
pallavi talam was khandha jaathi roopakam
Swaras in ragavardhini + shriranjani + Sindhubhairavi with grahabedham
pallavi neraval for 7 mins and swaras for 11 mins
08A. viruththam - kaadalAgi kasindhu - bEgada+ aadiya pAdanai - sAveri + naadiya - shyama - tevaram
08B. varuvaarO - shyamA - GKB
09. Abhang- maaza sakha ??? - lalit - swami swaroopananda
10. pavamAna - mangalam
Ranjani Gayatri@BGS On Dec 25th,2021
-
rajeshnat
- Posts: 9927
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04
Re: Ranjani Gayatri@BGS On Dec 25th,2021
Over to the Review
---------------------
As i settled in the first floor balcony that portion was filled with may be 80 to 90 percent , i could peep below it was more than half to two third empty. I was atleast thinking their million views in a week of their illayaraja song maayonE would have helped them in their marketing campaign , posssibly no luck yet . Moral of the story - having likes in social media does not translate to live concert ticketed attendance , but still they have most recall because of that Illayaraaja recent number.
RaGa sisters opened with a well set team . They announced they are starting with shree ragam varnam. It was a nice start for sure , very clinical .When it is varnam you usually dont expect manodharma . Both sang very well and the sound setting was perfect throughout , usually in the past atleast one sister gayatri will nitpick on some point but they had to do nothing , kudos to sound technicians. RagA sisters certainly are representative of the semmangudi school in their viruviruppu . Arabi did the trick both of them sang very well, the swaras were too measured , gayAtri was like bit soaring but suddenly completed and closed . I felt they could have soared more with Arabi kalpanaswaras.
Ranjani took up malayamarutham. She sang well , Ranjani was like school going girl who gets always first five ranks , there was neat textbook homework done and neat presentation at MEdhai (class). Patnam famous piece was presented in a crisp fashion, in submain gayatri is more watchful and give more share to Ranjani she just into a good zone of extreme excellence in the swaras and both did well. The contrast of mishra chApu with a little slower number OVK number in the resplendent reetigowlai was sung with nice polish with great care to present both sahityam and also sangathi musical weight .
I was not sure at that point if submain was over or was that a delayed submain . But since only gayatri sang the entire alapana of poorvikalyani i was sure that poorvikalyani is the main. Gayatri sang a nice poorvikalyani ragam, this ragam is tricky as it is bounded usuallly with too much repetitions , but that complain i will place it with all musicians in the last 100 years, poorvikalyani is a recurring decimal raga devathai .When poorvikalyani is dropped as submain you think of few krithis ,but when dropped as main i usually think primarily only the main o Main masterpiece of Dikshitar . Madurai temple came with all the musical dressings in meenakshi mE mudham , this is the joy of me going to Carnatic Music live concert . I extrapolate at that time "my own emotions" with "my own understanding of MD and madurai" and also extrapolate with "my near 0 understanding of sanskrit. My own emotions ran with how MD must have toured Madurai and really felt so deep with the temple and city . He must have seen the gopurams then and each of the prakharams and must have felt i should compose something big .He took up gamanakriya and chiseled with so much of right words to musically get this magnificent krithi. Ofcourse i have no understanding of sanskrit but still with few sanskrit clues and keywords, i could float with Classical musical rasa with a long runway of poorvikalyani rasa with the most analytical vaggeyakkara muttuswami dikshitar . Very well sung by both sisters especially gayatri who is the pombala semmangudi of this century. What a neat tapestry of raga and how she sharpens her voice with such pure clarity especiallly with that wonderful line madhura puri nil...aye mani varalayE incidentally the sisters break at that key word nil...aye where one sister takes nil ... it while another continue with ...aye. I felt both built the swaras very well but gayatri suddenly decided to stop after kuraippu without a long round of swaras , that would have been better. Gayatri must have looked at the watch it was 11 40 she must have decided to give tani. O bad gayatri ,BGS baalu would not have minded another 10 mins there with poorvikalyani swaras.
The days best was indeed the RTP after a crisp fast filler ninnuvinA. Here it was like a typical semmangudi typecast taking the shape of two next generation sisters who are semmangudis 2nd generation sishyas . Ranjani sang well the alapana in complete madhyama kalam . When she started the charukesi chayal was there briefly in my head then i assumed it was vaagadeeshwari . Suddenly i heard a bit of vishnupriya of that popular thanjavur sankara iyer composition that Suryaprakash or TVS sing.Till the whole alapana was sung I just did not recollect the raga name . Towards the end i even mentally had a fleeting thought it was not chalanaatai or vishnupriya or vaagadeshwari, it was something else. Some patterns of sanjay singing vaagadeeshwari was for the most time . I zoned in the covid zone of say s kalyanaraman delicacy but still did not get the exact variant raga name then. Once ranjani sang the ragam, gayatri announced the raga prior to vitttal playing . When she announced raagavardini my tubelight head that was flickering throughout got brighter at last with raagavardhini . Gayatri was fantastic with second half of alapana she took more in the higher octaves with more chiseled brighas and she jumped like her paramaguru semmangudi where it is one leap from second round of raagam getting into taanam . Taanam was well done . When gayatri announced the ragam i was thinking about this ragam when i heard it once when sanjay sang in IIT madras 10 or 12 years back . Raagavardhini is indeed a beautiful ragam i knew then sanjay sang a koteeswara iyer song forgot the lines . Gayatri announced that she is modelling her pallavi with KI lines . Koteeswara Iyer is a phenomenal vaggeyakkara he spent most of his life writing 72 melakartha kriths and his contribution in some rare ragas say post shankarabharanam (29) to pre subhapantuvarali (45) are all foggy ragas , very difficult for atleast me to get it distinctly in my head and many are so great like chalanattai , pavani , vagadeeshwari and ofcourse this raagavardhini. The pallavi line was crisp and the choice of ragas in ragamaliga was also well done . Ranjani took the shreeranjani , gayatri took a hindustanized approach for sindhubhairavi which takes any shape based on the comfort of the singer . One bedham from sindhubhairavi to mohanakalyani was sharp and well presented , the early bedham into behag was not that aesthetic , the last bedham was sharp and i missed her step into thillang (my inability to catch). Gayatri announced the bedham ragas
Viruththam was all taken in standard heavy ragas like begada and saveri and was well done . Another semmangudi movement came in when they ended with varuvaaro in shyama. The last abhang was a bang , i like lalita but i did not like the last rhythmmic patterns where suddenly we get into radha kalyanam mode. Abhang problem in general is suddenly the mrudangam lose their variety of patterns and excessively homogenize the classical carnatic to hara hara mahadeva Radha kalayanam
Vittal Rangan did not err in proportion , in 5 concerts of mine so far he is in 3.Barring poorvikalyani where he was not showing that much classical sharpness . In RTP he was rocking , what a beautiful azhuttam and what control , he gets the right violin TNK ish press and a bit of sunaadam like MSG for sure- all thanks to many gurus inclusive of A kanyakumari who is even more than PSN mama in producing so many star worthy disciples . Vittal is A star in the making. Another star in the making is surely chandrasekara sharma effortless play with a bounty of strokes you dont feel reduced sound or patterns when only ghatam is on. Sai Giridhar is slightly just a bit like Patri Satish kumar minus minus , great left right combination and he is responsive for the whole duration of the concert . Tani was great and was in line with the duration of concert
All said "Goto LIve Concert Show PAtronage Without Excuses Series" (GLICSPAWES 2021 for short) concert #5 is done , 3 more to go.
Overall an excellent concert for 3 hours and 10 mins, especially thank raga sisters for ragavardhini RTP.
---------------------
As i settled in the first floor balcony that portion was filled with may be 80 to 90 percent , i could peep below it was more than half to two third empty. I was atleast thinking their million views in a week of their illayaraja song maayonE would have helped them in their marketing campaign , posssibly no luck yet . Moral of the story - having likes in social media does not translate to live concert ticketed attendance , but still they have most recall because of that Illayaraaja recent number.
RaGa sisters opened with a well set team . They announced they are starting with shree ragam varnam. It was a nice start for sure , very clinical .When it is varnam you usually dont expect manodharma . Both sang very well and the sound setting was perfect throughout , usually in the past atleast one sister gayatri will nitpick on some point but they had to do nothing , kudos to sound technicians. RagA sisters certainly are representative of the semmangudi school in their viruviruppu . Arabi did the trick both of them sang very well, the swaras were too measured , gayAtri was like bit soaring but suddenly completed and closed . I felt they could have soared more with Arabi kalpanaswaras.
Ranjani took up malayamarutham. She sang well , Ranjani was like school going girl who gets always first five ranks , there was neat textbook homework done and neat presentation at MEdhai (class). Patnam famous piece was presented in a crisp fashion, in submain gayatri is more watchful and give more share to Ranjani she just into a good zone of extreme excellence in the swaras and both did well. The contrast of mishra chApu with a little slower number OVK number in the resplendent reetigowlai was sung with nice polish with great care to present both sahityam and also sangathi musical weight .
I was not sure at that point if submain was over or was that a delayed submain . But since only gayatri sang the entire alapana of poorvikalyani i was sure that poorvikalyani is the main. Gayatri sang a nice poorvikalyani ragam, this ragam is tricky as it is bounded usuallly with too much repetitions , but that complain i will place it with all musicians in the last 100 years, poorvikalyani is a recurring decimal raga devathai .When poorvikalyani is dropped as submain you think of few krithis ,but when dropped as main i usually think primarily only the main o Main masterpiece of Dikshitar . Madurai temple came with all the musical dressings in meenakshi mE mudham , this is the joy of me going to Carnatic Music live concert . I extrapolate at that time "my own emotions" with "my own understanding of MD and madurai" and also extrapolate with "my near 0 understanding of sanskrit. My own emotions ran with how MD must have toured Madurai and really felt so deep with the temple and city . He must have seen the gopurams then and each of the prakharams and must have felt i should compose something big .He took up gamanakriya and chiseled with so much of right words to musically get this magnificent krithi. Ofcourse i have no understanding of sanskrit but still with few sanskrit clues and keywords, i could float with Classical musical rasa with a long runway of poorvikalyani rasa with the most analytical vaggeyakkara muttuswami dikshitar . Very well sung by both sisters especially gayatri who is the pombala semmangudi of this century. What a neat tapestry of raga and how she sharpens her voice with such pure clarity especiallly with that wonderful line madhura puri nil...aye mani varalayE incidentally the sisters break at that key word nil...aye where one sister takes nil ... it while another continue with ...aye. I felt both built the swaras very well but gayatri suddenly decided to stop after kuraippu without a long round of swaras , that would have been better. Gayatri must have looked at the watch it was 11 40 she must have decided to give tani. O bad gayatri ,BGS baalu would not have minded another 10 mins there with poorvikalyani swaras.
The days best was indeed the RTP after a crisp fast filler ninnuvinA. Here it was like a typical semmangudi typecast taking the shape of two next generation sisters who are semmangudis 2nd generation sishyas . Ranjani sang well the alapana in complete madhyama kalam . When she started the charukesi chayal was there briefly in my head then i assumed it was vaagadeeshwari . Suddenly i heard a bit of vishnupriya of that popular thanjavur sankara iyer composition that Suryaprakash or TVS sing.Till the whole alapana was sung I just did not recollect the raga name . Towards the end i even mentally had a fleeting thought it was not chalanaatai or vishnupriya or vaagadeshwari, it was something else. Some patterns of sanjay singing vaagadeeshwari was for the most time . I zoned in the covid zone of say s kalyanaraman delicacy but still did not get the exact variant raga name then. Once ranjani sang the ragam, gayatri announced the raga prior to vitttal playing . When she announced raagavardini my tubelight head that was flickering throughout got brighter at last with raagavardhini . Gayatri was fantastic with second half of alapana she took more in the higher octaves with more chiseled brighas and she jumped like her paramaguru semmangudi where it is one leap from second round of raagam getting into taanam . Taanam was well done . When gayatri announced the ragam i was thinking about this ragam when i heard it once when sanjay sang in IIT madras 10 or 12 years back . Raagavardhini is indeed a beautiful ragam i knew then sanjay sang a koteeswara iyer song forgot the lines . Gayatri announced that she is modelling her pallavi with KI lines . Koteeswara Iyer is a phenomenal vaggeyakkara he spent most of his life writing 72 melakartha kriths and his contribution in some rare ragas say post shankarabharanam (29) to pre subhapantuvarali (45) are all foggy ragas , very difficult for atleast me to get it distinctly in my head and many are so great like chalanattai , pavani , vagadeeshwari and ofcourse this raagavardhini. The pallavi line was crisp and the choice of ragas in ragamaliga was also well done . Ranjani took the shreeranjani , gayatri took a hindustanized approach for sindhubhairavi which takes any shape based on the comfort of the singer . One bedham from sindhubhairavi to mohanakalyani was sharp and well presented , the early bedham into behag was not that aesthetic , the last bedham was sharp and i missed her step into thillang (my inability to catch). Gayatri announced the bedham ragas
Viruththam was all taken in standard heavy ragas like begada and saveri and was well done . Another semmangudi movement came in when they ended with varuvaaro in shyama. The last abhang was a bang , i like lalita but i did not like the last rhythmmic patterns where suddenly we get into radha kalyanam mode. Abhang problem in general is suddenly the mrudangam lose their variety of patterns and excessively homogenize the classical carnatic to hara hara mahadeva Radha kalayanam
Vittal Rangan did not err in proportion , in 5 concerts of mine so far he is in 3.Barring poorvikalyani where he was not showing that much classical sharpness . In RTP he was rocking , what a beautiful azhuttam and what control , he gets the right violin TNK ish press and a bit of sunaadam like MSG for sure- all thanks to many gurus inclusive of A kanyakumari who is even more than PSN mama in producing so many star worthy disciples . Vittal is A star in the making. Another star in the making is surely chandrasekara sharma effortless play with a bounty of strokes you dont feel reduced sound or patterns when only ghatam is on. Sai Giridhar is slightly just a bit like Patri Satish kumar minus minus , great left right combination and he is responsive for the whole duration of the concert . Tani was great and was in line with the duration of concert
All said "Goto LIve Concert Show PAtronage Without Excuses Series" (GLICSPAWES 2021 for short) concert #5 is done , 3 more to go.
Overall an excellent concert for 3 hours and 10 mins, especially thank raga sisters for ragavardhini RTP.
-
grsastrigal
- Posts: 863
- Joined: 27 Dec 2006, 10:52
Re: Ranjani Gayatri@BGS On Dec 25th,2021
There was another of Ra ga on 26th evening, same venue. Is it some other organization arranging in NGS ?
Neetimati and bindumalini (RTP), ( my daughter went)
Not mayOn effect. The crowd is very cautious (because of pademic) Even the crowd puller, Sanjay sabha Sanjay - Music academy concert was not full (not real MA which is recorded),
Old people are cautious, I could see in Baratiya vidhya bhavan too. Krishna gana sabha, only 50 people for Vijay siva and GJR duo not even that.
Neetimati and bindumalini (RTP), ( my daughter went)
Not mayOn effect. The crowd is very cautious (because of pademic) Even the crowd puller, Sanjay sabha Sanjay - Music academy concert was not full (not real MA which is recorded),
Old people are cautious, I could see in Baratiya vidhya bhavan too. Krishna gana sabha, only 50 people for Vijay siva and GJR duo not even that.