"Carnatic singing in Dance utsav"

[Enna_Solven]

Any idea who these singers are?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd7Lba3lQcM

[Nick H]

Probably, you already looked at other videos posted by the same person, and might have concluded that it is a good guess that this performance took place in Hakuba which (Google tells me) is in Japan.

My detective work stalled at that point.

[Enna_Solven]

I didn't pursue it. They were singing neranammiti in Kanada-ish ragam. It sounded strange and I think they do not have a proper CM teacher.

[Nick H]

The accent (Japanese, I am guessing) was obvious. This must be a difficult thing to overcome. I know that, for instance, if I recite konnakal, the result is unmistakably English-sounding however good my performance may be in other ways (err... not that I'm claiming to be good at it, just illustrating a point).

I was impressed with the young mridangists!

[Enna_Solven]

No, not that kind of strangeness. When the Wesleyan students sing, I hear that language-foreignness but they are good. It was different from that. These Japanese singers strangely transformed the song itself.

[vasanthakokilam]

Right. Their sincerity and dedication is awesome.. the melody itself has gone through transformation, either intentionally by the teacher or unintentionally since it is a work in progress.

[Nick H]

Yes, to the extent that,out of context, and without the visual clues, I might not have recognised it as carnatic. But as VK says, praise for getting this far (hey... it's far more than i can do!)

[srkris]

It is like this "Sanskrit" song!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c9-XaA2f00

[kartik]

The tune is very lilting! Sounds like Shankar Jaikishen used it somewhere!, (not in Love in Tokyo though).