kunnakudi bAlamuralikrishna@MFAC on Sept 29th,2010

[rajeshnat]

kunnakudi bAlamuralikrishna@MFAC on Sept 29th,2010
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Vocal : kunnakudi bAlamuralikrishna
Violin : parur MA sundarEshwaran
Mrudangam : KV gOpAlakrishan
Concert duration : 1 hours and 5 minutes
Event Organizer : Carnatica

As I entered there was a lecdem going on , where chitraveena ravikiran was speaking . Whatever I heard , I found his explanation very lucid with good contextual demo .He sang few pallavi lines like to demonstrate eduppu, nadai ,as such it was my loss not to hear fully.

Then KBMK started his concert with sasikiran asking 4 rAgas , 4 nadais and 4 tAlams ,the audience lapped it up and suggested 4 each to create a 64 possible combinations . As such when the rAgas suggested were nAttaikurinji (I guess every one sings shanmughapriya and nattaikurinji to start pallavi), bindumAlini ,huseni and hemavati.

KBMK went onspot with a pallavi like "bindumAlini azhaittu hemavati damukku vAdi , engal Nattaikurinji landiL irukkum saddam hussein muNNE" . Just kidding , nothing like that happened, he went with the pro pallavi rAgA nAttaikurinji ,mAtya tala , khanda nadai pallavi.Few observations

# The rAga nAttaikurinji was sung for about 13 mins with more of a madhyamakAla spread with a very nice return for about 7 mins by MAS. His rAga essays were well done but I expected a little more mEl sthAyi touches which I expected that he would go in second round , but that did not happen

# tAnam was really well done , his voice has a lot of vocal power and it was well done , if I recollect right his tAnam was without mridangam support ,but certainly was really excellent stuff

# The pallavi line was "Shree rAjagOpAla bAlam bhajE shritha jana pAlam ", nice lines that fit definitely well with nAttaikurinji . He did a quite a lot of pallavi toss with a nice trikAlam The pallavi went for for 15 mins

# Swaras started with little less funfare in nAttaikurinji with he moving towards hameerkalyAni which was really top class. In the last varAli to an extent he lost his voice a bit , but overall swaras were not very expansive . In particular when he came back to the pallavi I was expecting him to go in all the 3 rAgas in reverse which did not happen he just sang few avarthanas in nAttaikurinji and concluded

# MAS was really good , his returns especially in tAnam in parur style was really good , all his swara returns were very good , infact he got deservedly lot more applause during rAgamAliga.

# The usual full time kanjirA artist KVG was the mridangam artist ,the patterns were not that great in general but had good sound.His tani was brief , to an extent a little well set mridangam artist could have taken the concert a little more

Overall a very good to excellent concert .

[mahesh3]

Rajeshnat, thanks for the review. Can u add a lit additional context on the Pallavi series that s going on? Would appreciate, info abt who sang this week?

Did u make it to Abhishek's? What did he sing?

[bilahari]

Rajesh, thanks for the review. This on-the-spot pallavi series is quite fascinating!

[rajeshnat]

Rajeshnat, thanks for the review. Can u add a lit additional context on the Pallavi series that s going on? Would appreciate, info abt who sang this week?

Did u make it to Abhishek's? What did he sing?

I only went for just this concert.

[sivapriya]

What was striking about the way MBK sang the pallavi was the maturity in approach, his control over layam and creativity.

The raga was laced with many a brilliant phrase across all speeds. The tanam that day deserves special mention. All classical rules of tanam singing were adhered to by him and the neraval for the Pallavi, which is so important to any pallavi singing, was sung exhaustively. There was no apparent rush and he did full justice to this aspect.