Violin - Priya Hariharan (Student of Sri. Lalgudi G. Jayaraman)
Mridangam - Venkat Subrahmaniam (Student of Late Sri Trichy Raghava Iyer)
1a. gajAnanam bhUta gaNAdi - hamsadhwani
1b. Om namah praNavArthAya - hamsadhwani
1c. gnAnAnandamayam dEvam - hamsadhwani
2. neranammitinayya (varNam) - kAnada - aTa – “pUchi†rAmanAthapuram SrInivAsayyangAr
3. sEnApatE - gouLa - Adi - UttukkADu vEnkaTasubbayyar (S)
4. harikathA SravaNa - rItigouLa - Adi - purandaradAsaru (RS)
5. paramaSivAthmajam - yamunAkalyANi - Adi - muttusvAmi dIkSitar
6. gOvardhanagirISam - hindOLam - rUpaka - muttusvAmi dIkSitar
7. bhAgayanayyA - chandrajyOti - Adi - tyAgarAjasvAmi (R)
8. rAgam tAnam pallavi - kIravANi – “dEvi nIyE tuNai mInAkSi†– Adi (2 kaLai).
9. brUhi mukundEti - kuranji - Adi - sadASiva brahmEndrar
10. tUgitaLe ranganA - nIlAmbari - kanda chApu - purandaradAsaru
11. pUkuyilkUvum - kApi - Adi (kanDa naDai) - "kalki" kRSnamUrthy
12. sApaSyath kausalyA - jOunpuri - Adi - tiruppayaNam panchApakESa SAStri
13. Vote of thanks & artiste felicitations
14. chaliyE kunjan mO (bhajan) - bRndAvani - Adi - svAti tirunAL rAma varmA mahArAja
15. pavamAnasutaDu (mangaLam) - sourASRam - Adi - tyAgarAjasvAmi
16. mangaLam kOsalEndrAya (mangaLam) - madhyamAvathi - maNavALamAmunI
As an effort to re-unite the rasika group in Colorado and seeing the turn out for Sri Chitravina N. Ravikiran’s concert last month, Naada, CO, organized a vocal concert of Sri V. K. Arunkumar, at the home of Sri Harish Subbaraya at Highlands, CO. Smt. Priya Hariharan accompanied Arun on the violin and Sri Venkat Subrahmaniam on the mridangam. After the customary vinayaka-dakSiNAmuRti-hayagriva invocations, Arun began the concert with a brisk kAnaDA varNam of rAmanAthapuram SrInivAsayyangAr. Arun, then, gave a short sketch of the gouLa rAga and followed by a rare kRti of SrI uttukADu vEnkaTasubbayyar. sEnApathE namOstute is a song with samasTi charaNam, which brings out the vidvath of SrI vEnkaTasubbayyar beautifully. Arun sang swaras at the pallavi line sEnApatE finishing it of elegantly at sEnApathE, dEvasEnApatE, SivasEnApatE, etc. He ended the svarapratAra with a couple of Avarthanams in ucchastAyi bringing out the typical characteristics of gouLa rAga, making it very enjoyable.
The ritigouLa rAga AlApanA which followed was essentially very satisfying. Arun traversed through the AlApanA effortlessly and brought out the colors of the rAga very well. He followed it with a rarely heard purandarasAru dEvaranAmA, harikathA SravaNamADo. He sang this ritigouLa uruppaDi very beautifully. He also sang svAras at the pallavi line harikathA SravaNamADo in mElkAlam. He cajoled the audience with some very nicely strung svara patterns anchored around nishada and tAraSadja during svaraprastAra. He announced that this song was set to tune by his guru Smt. Seetha Rajan. Smt. Priya Hariharan’s reply to both the rAga AlApanA and svaraprastAra was very commendable.
At this point, the audience thought he might single kannaDagouLa or kEdAragouLa and maybe he was going to sing songs in the gouLa series. But to our delight, Arun followed ritigouLa with a very very rare kRti of SrI muttusvAmi dIkSitar, paramaSivAtmajam (yamunA) which I personally haven’t before. After the concert, I checked with Arun whether it was indeed SrI muttusvAmi dIkSitar’s composition. I had this doubt since this kRti is not listed in SSP. He confirmed that this is in the pATAntram of the kalliDaikurucchi school and not in the others. Nevertheless, it was very heartening to hear a rare kRti. He also song another dIkSitar special, gOvardhanagirISam which was a personal favorite for his paramaguru, sangItakalAnidhi semmanguDi SrInivAsayyar.
Arun moved away from the semmanguDi school temporarily and sang chandrajyOti rAgam followed by the tyAgarAjasvAmi kRti popularized by sangitakalAnidhi G N bAlasubrahmaniam and his SiSyaparamapara. Both the rAga AlApana and the song constituted what I think was arguably the piece-de-resistance. Smt. Priya Hariharan’s reply to the rAga AlApanA reminded us of her guru’s chandrajyOti. When Arun was singing the rAga AlApana there was a discussion amongst some of the rasikas there, whether it was dharmavati janyam or pAvani janyam. One person identified that it is close to pArtavizhi pArtapaDi song in the Kamal Hassan movie Guna. Before anyone could decide, one of the rasikA’s “smartphone†spit out the answer to be pAvani.
After a short coffee break, Arun sang a rAgam tAnam pallavi in kIravANi. Arun spent enough time in rAga and tAnam showing us his strength in rAga AlApana. He traversed effortlessly through the three octaves thrilling the audience with his effortless manOdharma sangeetha. Smt. Priya Hariharan also was on par in her replies to Arun during the RTP. The ragam and tAnam stretch well over 20 mins giving us full satisfaction. Arun, then, sang the pallavi “dEvi niyE tuNai… minAkSiâ€. The pallavi started one akSaram before samam and the Arudi was set at tuNai sabdham in pallavi, the 9th akSaram from samam. rAgamalika svaras were sung in bEhag, nAtakuranji, rEvati. Arun’s imagination in the svara prastAra was very commendable. He centered his svaras around some common phrases like pmgm in bEhAg, mgs in nATakuranji and pmr in rEvati. When he touched the tAra riSabhA in rEvati, it produced a very beautiful effect and was very pleasant to here. Sri Venkat Subrahmaniam then thrilled us with his tani Avarthanam and his tani definitely was satisfying.
Post RTP-Tani, Arun sang some of well known and rare tukkadas. Amongst the tukkadas, his nIlAmbari and bRindAvani pieces were very well sung. His pUnkuyilkUvam (kApi) reminded how well he stuck to pAtAntrams yet was able to bring out the beauty of the song with his singing. He also sang semmanguDi mAmA’s favorite sApaSyat kousalyA in jounpUri. It might have been better if Arun had sung the Slokam, nIlAbjabRnga sadRSam which was popularized by his paramaguru.
It was a wonderful evening with the artistes and we hope we will get more and more sangItam in Colorado.
Over-all concert rating: Good to Very Good.
