Charge of the young brigade

[mahesh3]

There is a subtle but powerful movement going on this season. The young brigade have made a mark, and there is good interest not only in their music, but they have been able to demonstrate worthy musical ideas as well while also witnessing pretty good crowd interest. Concerts of youngsters I have managed to see this season, and have enjoyed the musical experience include: Bharat Sundar, Sandeep Narayan, Ramakrishnan Murthy, Sriranjani Santhanagopalan, Amritha Murali, Vidya Kalyanaraman, Parur ananthakrishnan (violin), V. Srivatsan (mridangam). Bharat/Sandeep's concerts at NGS were wonderful - Bharat's Mohanam and Pallavi today were superb. Sandeep's academy gangeya bhushani was pretty good performed to a full house - while his main at NGS was awesome. He is clearly also a crowdpuller. Ramakrishnan's kambodhi at academy/Keeravani at MFAS yesterday had very nice ideas. Amritha Murali's concert was really good at the academy: all ghana ragams chosen and given heavy yet superb treatment. Even seniors should learn from her. Sriranjini also is superb. Srivatsan has easily been the stand out mridangam artist for me while P. Anantha krishnan has been the same on violin. Best wishes to all of them in the coming years - we are going to hear a lot about all of these individuals.

[carnatricks]

i was planning on starting a similar thread considering i have heard a lot of youngsters this season. i do disagree with you in a few points. first just looking for 2 clarifications - in the listing of names you have said parur ananthakrishnan but then mentioned p. ananthakrishnan below (there is a b. ananthakrishnan but not sure of a p. ananthakrishnan) which one are you refering to? and it is b.srivathsan i think not v.srivathsan. bharath sundhar and ramakrishnamurthy are good. i agree. sriranjani is good. has a nice voice but i dont think she is utilising it to the fullest. she seems too tns ish sometimes and it doesnt suit her voice. i was at rkms academy concert today too. was happy. i however heard sandeep and was not satisfied. he has a good voice but i feel he lacks senstivity to ragas and delivery in his singing. he seems to be too loud sometimes and shouts which removes the effect his music can have. his imitation of sanjay is definitely there which sadly is not a positive in his case unlike prasannas. vidhya is ok but she lacks the punch. the wow factor is missing. she sings like a good student of music which is fine at this level. three young vocalists that i want to add to this list are prasanna venkataraman, rithwick raja and sumithra vasudevan. i heard prasanna at the music academy and at naada inbam. he was very good. his raga alapanas have great depth and has all the ingredients. he has a nice nack of singing swaras and brings it to the eduppu admirably. his arabhi especially was sublime. more importantly he knows how to deliver his thoughts across to the audience. i heard rithwick (is that his spelling?) at ngs mini and at parthasarathy swamy sabha. he has a very deep and heavy voice that merges with the shruthi so well. i like his raga selections and delineations. he seems to have a liking towards heavier ragams like kedaragowlai, varali, nattaikurinchi. was also surprised to note that he sang a pallavi in both those concerts. not many youngsters take up rtps in that slot. it was a bhairavi rtp at ngs and a kalyani rtp at pss. his thanam is one of the best ive heard this season with great continuity. maybe thats why he choses rtps. my experience with sumithra vasudevan was at the music academy. i was there for chakravaham, shyama, kaikavashi and madhyamavathi. her niravals and swarams especially for madhyamavathi was simply great. i learnt that she is a disciple of smt.r.vedavalli. her style was totally classical and did not have any unnecessary frills or gimmicks. she has a very heavy voice which suits her style of singing. and her flow of thought is progressive and as a rasika i was able to relate to it. these are three youngsters i would like to add. also on the violin my picks would be r.raghul (disc. of m.chandrashekharan) parur ananthakrishnan and k.p.nandhini and for the mridangam i like thanjavur praveen kumar (grandson of sri.thanjavur upendran) n.c.bharadhwaj and s.j.arjunganesh. any chance you have listened to these artists? do try and catch them too. other rasikas please add in the names of youngsters you listened to. my final picks for vocal - prasanna venkataraman, rithwick raja, ramakrishnamurthy, bharath sundar, sumithra vasudevan, amrita murali. others thoughts please.

[tkb]

It is true that youngsters are doing good and also kudos to the rasikas for making it in large numbers! This is indeed a good development and i am sure we are going to have greater seasons to come by!

[Nick H]

Amritha Murali and Sumithra Vasudev are known regular favourites of mine. There was another youngster called K Jyotsna, who I have lost track of recently.

There will be future generations of great carnatic singers!

[vasanthakokilam]

There will be future generations of great carnatic singers!

Yes indeed. I do have some concerns however, systemically, about future generations of great carnatic music rasikas. One symptom that triggered this concern is with the age demographic of rasikas of afternoon concerts at non music academy venues. Those are great 'farm systems' where up and coming artists can hone their skills in front a crowd. Last year, I attended a few of those. The average age of the audience was skewed to the higher side than normal ( which is already older ). In some concerts, the younger folks there were only the friends of the young musician. I wonder if the attendance will start declining there as we go into the future. The current younger generation demographic has a bigger proportion of two-earner families than ever before and they may not have enough off-time during working days to attend these afternoon concerts. Those afternoon concerts are not well attended already and I fear that attendance rate may go down further due to this demographic shift. I am sincerely hoping that my concerns are misplaced.

[Nick H]

I hope so too, but I fear otherwise. At one of those youth-music-organisations's programs, a year or two ago, I said to one of the organisers that they were doing a wonderful job of putting young performers on the stage, but the audience was just us same old oldies that might be found in that hall any day.

Good news: I saw one very young boy enthralled by Smt Vedavalli's MA concert.
Bad news: I saw one very young boy enthralled by Smt Vedavalli's MA concert.

[rananthga]

I really liked Ramakrishna Murthy @ MA - he's got amazing control, and brisk rendering also. I liked M. Rajeev on violin and Pgt. Harinarayanan on Mridangam also. They are all very talented youngsters who must have worked very hard to get here. Yes, we're going to have a future generation of very strong carnatic musicians that will be torch-bearers of this rich tradition.

My only perception about today's young mridangam artistes - they focus on packing a lot of solkattu into a song that sometimes the attention deviates from the song to the solkattu. Contrast this against what a PSP or PMI would play. They understand and maintain the composers bhaavam and embellish that. My guru used to say - "A good mridangam artiste should be like a good agarbathi - neither too strong nor too light - his presence should be felt just enough to produce good music - and create the right comfortable environment for doing pooja".