Abhishek Raghuram in BTM Academy, Bangalore

V_Shesha · Post by **V_Shesha** » 21 Jun 2008, 23:25

Concert in BTM Academy, Bangalore

Abishek Raghuram - Vocal
HK Venkataraman - Violin
Arjun Kumar - Mrudangam
MA Krishnamurthy- Ghatam

1. Valachi- Navaragamalikam- Adi
2. Yochana- Durbar- Adi (K, S)
3. Ragaratnamalika che- Reetigoula- Roopakam (R, K, N , S)
4. Dudukugala- Goula- Adi
5. RTP:Simhendramadyamam-Adi ( 2 Kalai) -
,,,Ni gama sa daa vinodi || ni Neerajadala Lochani ||Sadaa
6. Vullavanu-Sudda Saveri (Hindustani style)- Khanda Chapu
7. Mangalam

I had a choice to attend Neyvelli Santhanagopalan in Malleshwaram and Ahishek in BTM. I decided that that I should listen to upcoming and talented youngsters. It was an excellent concert.

It was almost a 2hour 45 minutes concert but the list seems quite short. Abhishek was brilliant. This boy will make it big in the years to come. Always trying to improvise and most importantly he was wholeheartedly trying. Reetigoulai ragam was classic. He experimented a lot and was very successful. Swaram in Ragaratnamalika che was very interesting.
I thought his rendering of Dudukugala was not that appealing. He was trying to improvise and be creative in every line and it was too much deviation from what we regularly hear. I think some songs need to be left as is.

Simhendramadyamam ragam was dealt differently. He chose to sing it in a slow and controlled pace with quite a bit of Hindustani prayogams. The ragman went on for almost 25 minutes. His imagination was quite good and very appealing in the way he handled the ragam. There were shades of him copying Dr Balamuralikrishna in some of the ragam phrases. This was mainly switching on sancharams in different octaves or even jumping from one note in the lower octave to another note in the next octave. However, there was no dilution of the ragam delineation while doing these. The RTP starting after 3 akhsharams was simple and good. He added 2 different ragams during nereval and swaram (Simhendramadyamam with Hamsavinodini and Thodi). Strangely he didnâ€™t do trikalam in the RTP given that the list is so short.

The accompanying artistes were very good. HK Venkataraman followed Abhishek like a shadow. His delineation of Reetigoulai ragam was short but had the classical content. He showed his brilliance and perfect control of his instrument in his reply of Simhendramadyamam Ragam.
Arjun Kumarâ€™s following was exuberant. His following of Keerthanams was excellent.
Tani avartanam with veteran MA Krishnamurthy was very enjoyable and drew lot of applause during their individual rounds.

Abhishek had to close the concert with one just composition in Kannada after RTP (a person sitting next to me was mentioning that very rarely anyone has heard the composition of Basavanna in carnatic concerts).

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 22 Jun 2008, 00:25

balE. Great attempt by Sri Abhishek to explore rItigauLa as main.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 22 Jun 2008, 01:46

Also a Basavanna!
Thank you Shesha for the review. Hope there is going to be one from Malleswaram too.

gobilalitha · Post by **gobilalitha** » 22 Jun 2008, 05:40

we are very happy that a newly joined member has given such a knowlegable review about the performance.. , continue your contributions., thanks gobilalitha

braindrain · Post by **braindrain** » 22 Jun 2008, 09:50

Prashanth,
rItigauLa wasn't main ( about 35 mins). The main piece was the RTP, which took almost 1hr 30 min including tani Avartanam.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 22 Jun 2008, 10:52

V_Shesha wrote:2. Yochana- Durbar- Adi (K, S)
3. Ragaratnamalika che- Reetigoula- Roopakam (R, K, N , S)

Thank you shesha for your write up. What does k mean in your post here???

V_Shesha · Post by **V_Shesha** » 22 Jun 2008, 15:45

Rajeshnat,
K meant Keertanam. Not sure why I wrote that when it is obvious that a Keertanam has to be rendered to sing nereval/swaram

Apologize if that caused confusion.
Shesha