Sikkil Gurucharan-Miami Shiva Vishnu Temple-Oct 1st 2011

[maduraimini]

Saturday, Oct.1, Sri. Sikkil Gurucharan gave a splendid concert in Miami Shiva Vishnu Temple. He was accompanied by H.K.Venkataraman on the violin and Tiruvaroor Bhakthavathsalam on the mridangam. The concert started a little late- not at 4 p.m. as announced. Gurucharan's voice was in fine mettle and he enthralled the audience with his music.

The concert started with Sri raga varnam' 'sami ninne kori'. There was a very small glimpse of the raga before he started the varnam. It was followed by H.K.Muthiah Bhagavathar's kannada song 'Bhuvaneshwariya' in Mohanakalyani (request of mine) with swaram. The song was wonderful.His voice flows so melodiously even in the upper octaves. Then he sang Shyama Shastry's Chintamani raga song ' Devi Brova samayamide' and a beautiful garland of swaras. After this, he sang Tanjavoor Sankara Iyer's Tamil song 'Mruga Tirumal maruga' with niraval. The song was very well done. Then a fast paced 'chalamelara' of Thyagaraja in Margahindolam with crisp swarams enthused the crowd.

The next piece was a beautiful Kalyani alapana. The artist took his time to venture deep inside the ragam and bring out the raga essence. The violin also was good here. Gurucharan sang Dikshitar's Navarathri kriti 'Kamalambam Bajare' ( this being the Navarathri season, he sang many Devi kritis). After the charanam, he sang the swarams. The song was sung with depth and brought out Dikshitar's beautiful lyrics. After this heavy piece, he sang an old song in Mukari,popularized by Musiri Subramania Iyer in the olden days- Enraikku Siva kripai varumo .

Then came the masterpiece- Ragam,tanam,pallavi in raga Lalitha. It was enchanting without sounding Hindustani- The pallavi went something like this- Sama gana mridanga nada priye- veena venu sangeetha priye ( I may be wrong here and if you remember, please correct me). The pallavi was in Lalitha, malayamarutham and I think 3 more ragas( I forgot). I asked the artist after the concert and remembered him saying Malayamarutham and sudda saveri , I have forgotten the other ragas, but they were all good. Then he sang Annammachary's "ksheerabdi kanyakaku' in kurinji. The last song was a new one for me- 'danam tarum kalvi.......' followed by the famous' Jagajjanani' and then pavamana. There was no hindi bhajan or the usual sindhubhairavi or unknown ragas to confuse the audience. Bhakthavtsalam did the 'Tani' in Kalyani and a small one in the ragam tanam which was good. H.K.Venkataraman went along with the artist.

When the concert ended, I wished there were more songs. All in all, it was a very good concert, worth going that far. I think Gurucharan pays attention to the audience and with the songs he selected , he gave a very pleasing performance. This young man has a very bright future. Everybody I talked to loved the concert.

[rajeshnat]

MaduraiMini
Thanks for the review , nice to hear lalitha RTP - must have been a great treat

[arasi]

Great review, Maduraimini!
Such a detailed one too. I know that rasikAs in Florida have to drive long distances to attend concerts.
Only recently, I was wondering if Lalitha is taken up by performers for singing an RTP. At least, I haven't heard one.
Hope I get to hear Gurucharan this season.
You had a bonus--of your request being picked up!
I hear Abhishek Raghuram is singing in Florida soon. If you go, please let us have a review. Thanks.

[maduraimini]

Thanks, Arasi and Rajesh. The Lalitha was filled with 'sukham' and I thought he was going to sing Dikshitar's ' Hiranmayeem'. Instead he sang the tanam and pallavi. Very enjoyable Lalitha. I am planning to go hear Abhishek on Oct. 16th at the same venue- God Willing! I will try to write the review. Thanks again. I think anybody who has not heard Gurucharan before should make an attempt to hear him at least once.

[maduraimini]

I forgot this in my review- When I entered the Hall, I saw Sri Bhakthavatsalam and asked him if he could do me a favor and ask Gurucharan to sing 2 of my favorites. He was gracious enough to pass on my requests to Gurucharan, who sang both the songs- the other one being the Harikamboji song, 'Muruga Tirumal maruga'. And in the end, when I went to Mr. Bhaktavatsalam to congrataulate him on his fine accompaniment, he made sure I was happy to hear both my songs. When I thanked Mr.Gurucharan for singing my requests, he was glad he could please me and was glad that I enjoyed them. The artists were modest and tried to please the audience which as it should be. I think the artist's modesty and aim to please those who come to listen to them is a big plus for them.

[rshankar]

dhanam tarum kalvitarum....is a viruttam popularized by Smt. MSS. I have noticed that SG's repertoire overlaps with that of Smt. MSS' - I wonder if that is through Smt. Mala.

[mahavishnu]

Maduraimini, thanks for your review.

dhanam tarum kalvitarum....is a viruttam popularized by Smt. MSS. I have noticed that SG's repertoire overlaps with that of Smt. MSS' - I wonder if that is through Smt. Mala.

Interesting, Ravi. I have noticed this too. SCG has learned a number of compositions from Smt Mala, but I believe he also learned directly from Smt Radha Viswanathan (Cienu can add more to this). He talks about his association with them as gurus (and not just family) in his website http://www.sikkilgurucharan.com/gurus.php

Given that he originally trained with Vaigal Gnanaskandan (of the SSI school), the styles and sangatis must have been quite naturally compatible.

He sang an exquisite version of Ramalinga swamigal's "vAnathin meethu mayilAda kandEn" here in Toronto. It had all the sangathis almost exactly like the original MSS version. I am very glad that some of these pieces are still in vogue today, thanks to the likes of SGC.

[vasanthakokilam]

Hmmm.. I have been in two minds about attending his concert nearby me due to some scheduling conflicts, but all this MSS talk makes me want to adjust the priorities to skew towards attending!!

[mahavishnu]

VK, for whatever my opinion is worth... you should definitely go (and put in a request for Mukhari)!

[vasanthakokilam]

'Enraikku Siva kripai' will definitely skew me in that direction. Thanks Mahavishnu.

[maduraimini]

Gurucharan sang many of M.S. songs and has M.S. style humility and modesty also. Vasanthakokilam, please try to go to his concert, if you can. You'll be happy you did.

[vasanthakokilam]

I did and I am glad I did. Thanks to both of you for nudging me in that direction. The second song was Mukhari! ( enthaninne ). How about that! Made my day!! I did not even put in a request, Gurucharan said his local hosts did. Good for them. The Varnam was in Mandari and I was beside myself for getting the raga based on his initial humming of the raga, given my embarrassing record of sometimes not getting even popular ragas. I will attribute it to his excellent humming, to pull that out from some rarely visited recesses of my brain. Enjoyed the concert very much. If some one writes a review for the Chicago concert, I will chime in more.

[mahavishnu]

Glad you liked the concert, VK. and it is especially nice that he sang Mukhari
Mandari is hard to place from just humming, you need the full octave explored to get the raga swaroopam.

Was it Sri LGJ's varnam that he sang? Hope you will write a full-fledged report with a song list.

[arasi]

Yes, I agree.

[vasanthakokilam]

The varnam wa "vanajaksha ninne kori". Gurucharan announced it as 'Mysore Vasudevachariyar'.
It was not humming but more a brief 30 second delineation. For the first part of that, it sounded like in the Pantuvarali-Purvikalyani complex but then in a flash it was not. That is when Mandari came to my mind. Gurucharan then announced it. I was quite surprised and thrilled about that myself!

I will reconstruct the song list together and post it. Hope someone else who attended can augment it.