R Raghavendra@hamsadhwani on March 01st,2012
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Vocal : R Raghavendra(son of srimushnam raja rao)
Violin : Parur Ananthakrishnan (Son of MA sundaresan)
Mrudangam : Trivandrum balAji
Concert duration/Day : ~ 2 Hours and 15 mins /Thursday
Concert Type : Nirvana (prime evening concert , no concert to follow)
Sabha/Hall : Hamsadhwani
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3. murugA murugA (R N S) - sAveri - PT
5 mins violin return and neraval for 7 mins in the pallavi line
3 mins swaras
4. ksheenamai - mukhAri - T
5A. eNdukku pEddala (R N S T) - shankarAbharanam - T
11 mins alApana and 8 mins violin return
neraval in "vEda shAstra purANa tattvArthamu dElisi " for 7 mins
swaras for 12 mins
5B. tani fo 12 mins
6. manadirkku uGandadhu - sindhubhairavi - TSI
7. nAnyAkE badavanu - behAg - PD
8. thillana "...devi ambujavalli??? "- madhuvanti - srimushnam raja rao ???
9. mangalam
This is the first time I am hearing R Raghavendra,having only heard he won the popular tv show title . I was about 20 mins late when I entered , Raghavendra was singing a very nice saaveri alapana. His voice had nice sowkhyam , and the krithi did continue well. The neraval line was well done more in the first half , he had a bit of problem in singing comfortably in higher octaves which became more imminent as the concert generally moved on. The swaras of Saaveri were not well rounded and the mukhari krithi just could have had bit more quicker turns .
The main in shankarabharanam was sung very well, especially the alapana that had a lovely madhamakAla sowkhyam which generally defines most of the contours of sbharanam. The krithi was well done , in neraval and swaras it was a bit of mixed bag . I could spot a lot of vocal thrust that was bit jerky, and it just reminded a lot of his guru sanjay. Overall I liked his approach of shankarabharanam that appeared bit manodharmic .In general this krithi can always be too paddantarized replica of yesteryear vidwans, which was fortunately not the case.
The time was roughly 08:10 when balaji fiinished a breezy tani, I thought he would go for a pallavi that too the concert starting at 06:15 pm. Instead it was tukkada one two and three, the sindhubhairavi with a rAga sketch was very good with TSI composition.The pick was the last madhuvanti thillana which I am assuming his illustrious dad is the composer. As I walked some one told the madhuvanti thillana was BMK , not too sure , but I just like this madhuvanti thillana, the composer has put a lot of great musical ideas there. The behAg was just good, could not connect that well with the pallavi enunciation.
The violinist another son of another accomplished father , was bit of mixed bag. He is in the learning curve one could see a lot of MAS effect in the alapana , especially in shankarabharanam there was quite a bit of fast cut bowing.
The mridangist Balaji is a very matured accompanist , nice nAdham the roll was quite adventurous at times and his tani had few patterns that had a good gripping speed which made me to enjoy the tani bit more than usual.
In short , the impression of raghavendra is that he has a lot of madhyamakAla sowkhyam , but when moving from mid to higher notes , there was little extra gush of vocal power that bit sacrifices the voice quality. I presume it will just go away or he will work.This young vidwan appears very promising.
ON a side note, he is the carnatic idol 2011 champion. I did not have any chance to hear him last year or look at the youtube links . This concert was my first experience of him . But before going I thought the tv exposure will go a long way to have more crowd of rasikas . But unfortunately the reality was he had just 50 rasikas, it was a paid concert.In short that makes me think that carnatic idol is very much like T20, we all forget what we awed last year.
Overall a good to very good concert