A Sundaresan - Vocal
Gayathri Venkataraghavan & Vasumathi Desikan - Vocal Support
V V Ravi - Fiddle
R Ramesh - Mrudangam
Shyama Sastri Day
Hamsadvani & Lions Club, 20th March 2006
nA manavini vinu - saurAshTRam varNam - catusra jAti aTa tALam (R)
pAhimAm srI rAjarAjEsvari - nATTai - tisra Adi
dEvi nI pada sArasamulE - kAmbhOji - Adi (2)
karuNa jUDavammA - varALi - misra cApu
kAmAkshI parayugamu - yadhukula kAmbhOji - misra cApu (R)
Emani migula - tODi - Adi(2) (R)
mAyammA - nATTakuranji - Adi(2) (RS)
tani
brOva samayamidE - punnAgavarALi - Adi(2)
sankarI sankarI - kalyANi mangalam - kaNDa jAti aTa tALam
The concert was scheduled to begin at 6 pm. There was an eventless felicitation function from 6:30 pm and the concert actually started at 7:30 pm. Sri Sundaresan said he will sing till 9:15 or so. He also spoke about the essential aspects of the doyen's compositions for about 15 minutes. Such functions tell one not attend any of the concerts with felicitation ceremonies preceeding them time and again.
The concert started after all the wait with a brisk short sketch of saurAshTram. The varNAm was rendered superbly with the anubandam intact. It was very refreshing to hear a varNam with anubandam. The nATTai kriti which followed was good and the mention of svarajati compositions thro' the sAhitya 'svarajati kalpita saHNgItarasikE' was highlighted. This was followed by nice renditions of the kAmbhOji and varALi kritis.
The yadukula kAmbhOji AlApanai was good and showed all the essential sancarams of the ragam. The svarajati was rendered very well. The short tODi AlApanai was nice and the kriti which followed was also well rendered. The nATTakuranji AlApanai was good and the kriti ended with mEl kala svarams. The punnAgavarALi kriti and the kalyANi mangalam were very good as well.
All the alapanais were very short and one could visibly see Sri Sundaresan rushing thro' the pieces. One guesses that he did this to not miss anything he had planned to sing. He did a good job in choice of kritis. All of them were pieces, which one would have heard off, but never actually heard.
Smt Venkataraghavan and Smt Desikan could have been a bit more feebler considering they were giving Vocal Support. Their voice was in some places overshadowing the voice of Sri Sundaresan. Partly the sound system and its in-charge needs to be blamed for not having set the microphones properly. Sri Sundaresan's Microphone was on atrociously low volume while Smt Venkataraghavan, who was off sruthi many a times, had a high volume on her microphone.
Sri Ravi on the violin was also off sruthi. His essays were rather normal and the bowing was shrieky at places.
Sri Ramesh on the mrudangam provided very good accompaniment and one could feel him playing the sangatis. The tani was very well structured and the two Avartana kOrvai at the end of the tani was just too good.
bharath