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Vocal : suryaprakash
Violin : Dr narmadA
Mrudangam : neyveli skandasubramaniam
kanjirA : pApanAsam sethurAman
Concert duration : 2 hours and 40 minutes
1A. slOkham "vakrathunda mahAkAya" - mandAri
1B. varnam "vanajAkshi ninnE kOri" - mandAri - mysore vasudevacharya
2. intakannAnandamEmi(R S) - bilahari - T
5 mins alApanai 3 mins violin return
3 mins swaras
3. karuNAlaya nidhiyE (R S)- hindOLam - VedanAyagam Pillai
6 mins alApanai 3 mins violin return
6 mins swaras
4. shree mAthrubhUtam (Raga sketch) -kannada - MD
5A. rAmA neeyeDa(R N S T) - kharaharapriyA - T
14 mins alApanai 8 mins violin return
9 mins neraval in "tana saukhyamu tAnErugaka yorukalu tanu bOdhana sukhamA "
12 mins swaras
5B. tani for 16 mins
6. RTP - dEsh in tishra gathi triputa talam
pallavi line "semmOzhiyAna thamizh mozhiyAm vAzhi vAzhi"
rAga alApanai for 7 mins
tAnam for 8 mins
pallavi with swaras for 8 mins
7. oRu nAl Oru pOzhudAgilum - mishra kamAch - Psivan
8A.narAyaneeyam slokham "yOgEEndranAm" in shyam kalyAn + kAnadA + yamuna kalyAni + navarOz??
8B.krishnA mukundA murArE - navaroz - psivan
9A. viruththam "kunram eRindhaDum" - sindhubhairavi + bhimplAs -thirumurugAtrupadai
9B. kandaN karunai puriyum - bhimplAs -guhan
10A. viruththam "manadhil uRudhi vEndum" - brindAvana sArangA?? + shuruTTi - mahakavi bharathi
10B. shivaperumAn kripai vEndum - shuruTTi - psivan
11. nee nAma rupamulaku - sowrAshtram - T
The month of april and may kind of extended a bit into jUne in chennai , there was a dry spell of concerts . To an extent it has picked up well only from this week end , I could see there are about 3 concerts in yesterday saturday edition of the hindu and about 5 concerts today at sunday.
This sabhA nAyaki is a very nice sabha , it was started about 8 or 9 years back if I am right , they held it at different venues most notably at rAga sudha and for the past 3 or 4 years they have got a very nice hall in a fairly sleepy place of kotturpuram , nice always to see that chennai is spreading away from the mylapore and mambalam. The sabha is nice , with always heavy dose of Airconditioning and there is quite a bit of parking.
This concert of suryaprakAsh had its moments of ahA feel for most of the time , but there were few hiccups that were there in this concert.
Few hiccups:
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1.The sabha patron after giving introduction said his usual mike man is replaced by a new person and to an extent that inexperience was costing the quality of what could have been a better concert. The first varnam with the slOkham was really well done though the violin and vocal was bit loud , the lines of the varnam was in the most overcrowded lines "vanajAkshi", I always wonder how in general musicians sing varnams with this starting lines where there are atleast 5 to 6 varnams in circulation .This varnam is in a rare rAga mandAri , I get so easily confused with amrithavarshini , perhaps as it did not rain outside I made up my mind as mandAri
.2. The choice of bilahari and very close to that the kannada is perhaps not my cup of tea. To me personally this zone of rAgas is not that great and incidentally I also believe ThyagarAja and Dikshitar did not give their best in these two krithis intha kannananda(especially) and shri mAthrubHutam (just a nice one )when compared to so many of their other krithis. I liked the bilahari alApana of Suryaprakash and swaras a lot , but the support of Dr nArmada was bit too rough here. shri MAthrubhUtam was in vilamba kAla mode.
3. Perhaps the biggest hiccup was the play of skanda . He usually plays well , for him the combination of his mike (I wish he had swapped the mike of kanjirA player) and may be he did not tune that well his mrudangam. I found his play not that good, kind of sarvalaghu touch was missing and his anticipation was bit offkey.
Moments of AhA feel:
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1. Musicians have a standard rule of thumb.For centuries they either take a single rAga rtp in rAgas that have elaborate scope like say keeravani or shanmughapriyA or when they take few rAgas of little less scope they jump into the bandwagon of rAgamAliga swaras to give the sense of completeness . But suryaprAkash expanding only Desh is indeed bEsh. The emotive syrup and perennial lazy hues of desh was well presented .rAga alApana was very well done with Dr narmada coming up to full form there (the mSg that was missing throughout come out in full swaroopam in desh).TAnam was really superb in all counts , parur discontinous or cut bowing gelled superbly with torrents of sangathis in tAnam .Tanam was non metered for about 3 minutes and then metered for another 4 minutes it was really superb and brilliant.While I was expecting pallavi line "bharatha desam enRu peyar solluvar pagai velluvAr" that he usually sings, he surprised me with this creative line of pallavi , more to the occassion that was nearing .Trikalam was well done in "semmOzhiyAna thamizh mozhiyAm vAzhi vAzhi" with nice round of gripping and fast swaras, the vAzhi vAzhi was used to display a lot of dashing charm in desh.
2. HindOlam krithi was the most complete from r to s with the krithi rendition all uniformly top notch.The style was perhaps taken from GNB where the emphasis was little more in high speed brigha uruttal especially in the line sarva vedha nivotha kArana?? , but during those 7 minutes swaras his manodharmam was in full throttle with very minimal violin return at the end , the creative patterns was at its best not a shade of either mmi or tvs or say other popular hindolam singers like santhanam.His swara kalpana manodharmam easily asserts in each concert
3. Kharaharapriya as a main is generally sung as a XL biggie main and the touch of the rAga here was more like a typical nAdaswara touch , good momentum with no moment of sAg . The neraval and swaras were really superb with some great anticipation and reply by narmada, I would have wished little better support from the mridangist , i didnot hear that much and his anticipation was bit offkey
4. All tukkadas were well done , he kind of went with slokham and viruththam at the beginning of each and every one ,personally the yOgeendrAnam slokham was very well done and it was the best pick(kept me wondering how shyam kalyan is different from hameer kalyAni) . In the murugAtru padai before the start of the resplendent kandan karunai in bhimplas , he took few artistic liberties in singing few viruththam lines like skanda subramaniam(with mridangist in mind) and was well done without sacrificing musical aesthetics. The tukkadas success is typically gauged with minimal or zero audience exodus , all of them stayed to hear them all
Accompanists:
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Dr narmada showed her class the most in desh , very very fast bowing and her glides were at times superb . One keeps wondering her class in a typical cm-hm boundary rAgas are not matching that much with pure CM rAgas like bilahari.
SkandA , usually plays much better than what he did ,mediocrity bug bit him , sethurAman provided support that was good most of the time. I did not enjoy their tani that much
pallavi especially tAnam, hindoLam entire krithi, neraval and swaras of kharaharapriya were the top picks.Overall a very good to excellent concert for 2 hours and 40 minutes.
