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Accompanied by Bombay Anand (presently disciple of A KanyakumAri)- violin and Erode nAgaraj - mrudangam
1A. saraswati namUsthubyam varaDe kAma rupini vidya rambham karishyAmi siddhir bhavathumE sadhA " slokham" - begaDa
1B. Inta parakelanamma(S) - begaDa - veenaikuppier
swaras for 4 mins
2. shree dumdurgE (R,N)- shreeranjani -MD
neraval in "caranakisalaye cAmikaravalaye svara saNgeetanilaye suruciramalaye"
alapanai for 5 mins, violin return 4 mins, neraval for 5 mins
3. Needu charana (R N S) - Kalyani -Pallavi Gopala Iyer
alapanai for 7 mins, violin return 6 mins, neraval for 5 mins and 4 mins swaras
neraval in "jagath jaNaNi maNoNmani shankari rupini kalyAni??"
4. saraswathyA bhagavatyA - chAyagaula - MD
5. sharadhE veenA vAdana - devagAndhari - PSivan
6A. ninne nammi nAnu (R N S T) - TOdi - SS
11 mins alApanai , 6 mins violin , 9 mins neraval and 10 mins swaram
neraval in "kaNNa thaLLi kathA kari karamu??"
6B. tani for 11 mins
7. khalaya mama hridaya - kApi - MV
8. bhajE shAradhambham - ragamAliga - tuned by RK Shriram Kumar and is by Adi ShankarAchArya
9A. patiki hAratI rE (sItA) - madhyamavati + shurutti
9B. mangalam kosalendraya + svasti prajAbhyah - madhyamAvati
Our prashant performed for navarathri season and this is my first concert experience of hearing him live.The concert was for 2 hours and 15 minutes with another 5 minutes of brief interruption after submain when vijaysiva was garlanded as he was the karana kartha to organize this years navarathri festival concert in this temple.
Prashant must have a penchant for singing rare krithis , all perhaps because of the courtesy of his guru Smt vedavalli. To an extent prashant also modelled his concert as a vijaysiva like concert , both in terms of balance and delivery.
prashant started with a known slokham (at last I know one slokham by heart that was sung
) and launched into a fine begaDa .Swaras were crisp . Nice of him to quickly launch into a detailed alApana of shree ranjani (no traces of AbhOgi at all to me), the rare MD krithi Shree dumdurgE was rendered with an excellent diction , just perhaps I would have loved him to take more quicker turns in neraval and perhaps shree ranjani without a sprinkle of swaras is a slight let down, very slight.The sub main was a clean copy book kalyAni, neraval and swaras were very well done .Two numbers were quick fillers one in chAyagowlai and another in sanskritized sivan krithi in devagAndhAri. His launch into tOdi was a clean nAdaswara piDi, this krithi of SS is very steep and prashant delivered in style with an excellent neraval and a nice gripping swaras . Overall at just one place he lost his voice strength before neraval when he sang few lines after a mini round of cittiswaras, but certainly tOdi charm was always there .
Tukkadas were all very good , the kApi was well rendered , perhaps the bhajE sharadhambham can be delivered with little more repetition to perhaps emphasise more and assert rAga swaroopam(Infact I noticed the same problem even with vijaysiva). The finish was nice.
Shortcomings:
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It may be minor or very major depending on how you look at it.
# This concert though excellent in classicism had a fairly heavy dose of sanskrit and telugu . One thamizh number or viruththam like vijaysiva(in http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php? ... h2009.html you see how VS drops a thamizh at 10, where his concert till 9 was sanskrit and telugu dose) would have lifted considerably to the audience as they would have got sAhitya aNubhavam. BTW I am assuming Prashant Prasad's mother tongue is telugu (as the name sounds that way), but when I spoke with him his one line thamizh phrase was clean.So I am sure it is very very easy for him to pick a no in thamizh, also I am sure few kannada numbers will make a clean finish to his concerts.
# Little more swaras with slightly more swara voice weight would have been perfect especially before main and possibly one popular filler in place of chAyagowla or devagAndhAri would have kept more the floating temple crowd more interested.
I discovered prashant and was so happy in also discovering this violinist from his land . Bombay Anand has a steady nAdham , very good shruthi suddham and played beautifully. Erode nAgarAj had his share of great play, particularly I liked his thakitha tatimi the most in tOdi play, lot of patterns in line with the sAhithya swaroopam and also in the early shree ranjani where there was more UKS fireworks . His tani was good.
Prashant,
Overall You and Anand are two superb stars in the making , it may be just time for you to join the bandwagon of bollywood carnatic stars like Aruna, BJ, ranjani-gayathri , Prasanna and charumathi etal.
Incidentally you two bombay stars bought in lot of rain to chennai, it rained a lot before and during the concert, infact my car swam before the concert
. Your music was packed just like kalyan to bombay vt fast local.It was a very good to excellent concert and a fantastic fast impression.
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