Sri. R. Suryaprakash (Vocal)
Sri. Kamalakiran Vinjamuri (Violin)
Sri. K. H. Vineeth (Mridangam)
Sri. Sowmiya Narayanan (Ghatam)
VEDA temple, Redmond, WA, USA
2023, May 21st, 1710-2010
1. vakratuṇḍa mahākāya (Slokam) + vināyakā ninu vinā - Hamsadhvani - Adi - E. V. Ramakrishna Bhagavathar (S)
2. ini orukaṇam - Sriranjani - Rupakam - Sivan
3. parātparā paramēśvarā - Vachaspati - Adi - Sivan (RNS)
4. guruguhādanyaṁ na jānēham - Balahamsa - Jhampa - Dikshitar
5. rāmābhirāmā ramaṇīyānāmā - Darbar - Misra Chapu - Thyagarajar (S)
6. sarasasāmadānabhēdadaṇḍācatura - Kapinarayani - Adi - Thyagarajar (NS)
7. kārttikēyagāṅgēya - Thodi - Adi x 2 - Sivan (RST)
8. RTP - Suryasri - Adi x 2 (RS)
9. English Note - Behag - Tisram - Muthayya Bhagavathar
10. nī nāmarūpamulaku - Saurashtram - Adi - Thyagarajar
11. vāḻiya centamiḻ - Madhyamavathi - Adi - Bharathiyar
I went to Vidvan Sri. Suryaprakash's concert with tempered expectations, and he blew them out of my mind. I'd never heard him live and wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Turned out, he combined the style of Sri. TVS (and Madurai Sri. Mani Iyer) style with nods to Sri. Somu and Sri. Sivan, and alongside the other three artistes created a memorable experience. The audience was a decent 60-70 people, and the crowd I think recognised what a good experience
He started off with a brief Slokam in Hamsadhvani and launched into vināyakā, to my delight. I was dreading the cliched vatāpigaṇapatiṁ or one of the more modern compositions, none of which are particularly appealing. But vināyakā, given its current form by Sri. GNB, is a classic and was a perfect pace-setter for the beginning of a concert. About 5 minutes of svarams followed at the pallavi line (I'd have slightly preferred at GNB's landing point of paramakr̥pāsāgara, but this was fine too.
He then sang a 5-minute ini orukaṇam, and then launched into a Vachaspati alapana for about 10 min. This again was delightful. There was an funny interchange with Sri. Kamalakiran where Sri. Suryaprakash sang a phrase, Sri. Kamalakiran followed with a slightly different phrase, and Sri. Suryaprakash repeated the original phrase, resulting in a sheepish grin from Sri. Kamalakiran :-) Sri. Suryaprakash introduced a grahabhedam of Revagupti, which the audience appreciated a lot. The violin ragam was for a good 6 minutes, and was brilliant as well, also including a similar grahabhedam. [I've been following Sri. Kamalakiran for years now, and his accompaniments for artistes from Smt. Kruthi Bhat to the Hyderabad Brothers are all reputed.]
As a Thyagarajar-lineage fanboi and after the previous Sivan krti, I was hoping for kaṇṭa jūḍumi or eṇṇāḍu nī kr̥pa galgunō, but he launched into parāṯparā and given the Thyagarajar-style of the compositon, I was very happy too. The 7-minute niṯaval was at the standard place of ariyayanum kāṇā ariya cōdi and the artistes traded svarams for another 9 minutes.
Throughout the concert, Sri. Vineeth's accompaniment was wonderful; I'd never heard him live before, and I very much enjoyed how we embellished the concert. Sri. Sowmiya Narayanan, in addition to accompanying with anusaraṇai to the other three, was also enthusiastic on stage. In fact, I want to say that all four artistes would often compliment each other on the stage, to great effect.
The next thing Sri. Suryaprakash sketched out I did not expect at all: a nice 2-minute sketch of Balahamsa, with a minute of the violin by Sri. Kamalakiran, playing amazing phrases! I really only knew one song: daṇḍamu beṭṭēṉurā, but Sri. Suryaprakash sang guruguhādanyaṁ na jānēhaṁ and I figured it must be some sort of vibhaktikr̥ti, which was confirmed by the artiste. This was followed by a nice rāmābhirāmā ramaṇīyanāmā, with 2-minutes of svarakalpana at the pallavi. And then started a lightning sarasasāmadānabhēdadaṇḍacatura, starting at the anupallavi, and the atmosphere became electric! There were about 5-minutes niṯaval and 7-minutes svaram at hitavu māṭalentō, including in the vein of Sri. TVS: very nice.
By now, there was a lot of anticipation about the main, and Sri. Suryaprakash started with a Thodi phrase, and I settled back in my seat :-) What followed was a spectacular 18-minutes of Thodi, with a lot of phrases in the mould of Madurai Sri. Somu. There was again an interesting grahabhedam of Mohanakalyani. Sri. Kamalakiran then rendered an amazing Thodi for a good 8 minutes as well, punctuated with audience applauses. At the end of the ragam the Sri. Suryaprakash paid tributes to Sri. Somu, narrating an anecdote involving Sri. Mani Iyer passing by a Somu concert and deciding to postpone his journey back wanting to listen to Sri. Somu.
The main piece was kārttikēya gāṅgēya gauritanayā. I'd have preferred a Thyagarajar song of course (I think Sri. Mani Iyer has sung both kaddanuvāriki and koluvamarēgadā), but I sensed a Sivan theme and embraced it. The piece was sung well, and there were a good 13 minutes of kalpanasvaram at the usual mālmarugā caṇmugā murugā gugā, with a misrakuraippu. Afterwards kalpanasvaram came a 14-minute thaniavarthanam, with interesting sound effects that landed well with the audience and with an unusual theermanam at the end.
Then came a 4-minute alapana I struggled with, until Sri. Suryaprakash took pity on me and mentioned that it's Suryasree, a dvimadhyama melakarta devised by Thanjavur Sri. Kalyanaraman, with a pratimadhyamam instead of the panchamam of Suryakantham, i.e. S R1 G3 M1 M2 D2 N3 S. And after the 2-minute violin sketch, the biggest surprise of the evening! A 7-minute thanam, replete with percussion, followed by a pallavi! In Adi x 2, the Manipravalam lyrics were haricaraṇam sadā ninaindāy virahatāpamāy gōpikā, starting 6 aksharams after. Thisram and svarakalpana followed, with ragamalikasvarams in Behag and Revathi. Besh!
The 3-hour concert concluded with Muthayya Bhagavathar's English note, Thyagarajar's mangalam and Bharathiyar's vāḻiya centamiḻ. All in all, a very enjoyable evening of high quality and yet crowd-pleasing music!