Trichur Ramachandran@ChennaiCultural Academy on Dec10th,2012

[rajeshnat]

Trichur Ramachandran@Chennai Cultural Academy on Dec 10th,2012
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Vocal : Trichur Ramachandran
Violin : V V Ravi
Mrudangam : ThiruvArur Bhaktavatsalam
Ghatam : G Chandrasekara sarma
Concert duration/Day : 2 hrs /Monday

Concert Type : Nirvana (no concert to follow)
Sabha/Hall : Chennai Cultural Academy/Ramarao hall

...
4. unnaDiyE gathi - bahudAri - GNB
5A. nannu pAlimpa (R N S T) - mOhanam - T
8 mins alapana and 4 mins violin return
5 neraval in "surapati nIla maNinibha tanuvutO nuramuna" and 6 mins swaras
5B.tani

6. muralidhara gOPAlA - maanD - PT
7. ninnu pogaDa taramA - kuntalavarAli - GNB

8A. "slokham" agrE pashyAmi - hamsAnandi + dhanyAsi + sahAnA +sindhubhairavi - narayaneeyam(Sri Bhattathri)
8B. Smara vAram - sindhubhairavi - SB
9. mangalam

Chennai cultural academy is the new name for nungambakkam cultural academy. The evening paid concerts are at 04:30 and 07:00 pm. I was at around 07:35 pm or so and I certainly missed atleast till submain for sure(commute post work is taking a lot of time). The newest sangeetha kalAnidhi Trichur Ramachandran(TVR) always faithfully follows the GNB style of rendering and he must be one of the finest sishya who has imbibed closely his guru . As always when one hears TVR's music, one always gets copious brigas , brigas that appear very polished as much as GNB and also occassions where the brigas produce a bit of significant hoarseness in TVR's voice.

I love GNB as a composer and as I entered, I heard one of my favourite compositions of GNB - unnaDiyE in bahudAri .The racy style rendition and bahudari is a raga that adds its own dimension of excitement. So far all the concerts that I attended of Trichur where mostly big 5 gana raga main. It was a bit of welcome change to hear mohanam .I remember, there was a parvathi concert that rsachi posted a year back or so where TVR sang a sada palaya in mohanam in 70'or 80's , and also I have heard his rA rA rajeeva . Those recordings of his almost blurs the line of GNB and TVR.

But in this concert TVR also sang with lot of vigour and certainly there were definite glimpses of those brilliant sangathis in mohanam . When nannu palimpa started , I was thinking may be there would be no neraval as typically nannu palimpa is sung without neraval .The neraval in surapati nIla was bit curtailed, the voice caving in a bit. But when TVR galloped into swaras , the hoarseness in his voice was more noticable . When brigas dont match with a sustained voice , there is always very glaring loss in shruthi .May be TVR's age caught up when he sang a RNS main .

All tukkadas were done in a typical GNB style fashion , the vigour and speed was always there.I particularly liked the ninnu pogada and the narayaneeyam slokham all in a typical but predictable ragamaliga ragas of hamsanandi,dhanyasi,sahana and ending with usually last raga of sindhubhairavi.The smaravAram was also sung beautifully.

V V Ravi played very well, there was nice nAdham from his violin and it was consistent .IN the percussion bhaktavatsalam had lot of interesting patterns and gelled well with the speed of TVR .I also felt there was at times too much strokes that kind of drowned the manOdharma pattern of vocalist, at times he is needlessly way too assertive . The young lad chandrasekara sharma was superb, he has improved leaps and bounds . His tani segments was very impressive . Chandrasekara sharma's dad is gurumoorthy who is the brother of vikku VinayakarAm , so certainly he is holding fort of his family tradition.

I sat in the but last row of a 900 seater , it kind of helps to avoid heavy beats of percussion. Incidentally the crowd was just about 30+ or so. This sabha has improved with its sound setting ,the AC is on.They have decorated the stage also with nice background (that may count for all those who found it till last year that it was a bit dingy- I remember there was a post on that) . It was a ticketed concert for the newest sangeetha kalAnidhi , he gave his best , but the crowd could have been more . I was told by a sabha patron whom I know for few decades that 07:00 pm has more crowd than a typical 04:30 pm concert.

There are 6 other sabhas within a km radius .Mudhra,IFA, BharatKalachar,Vanimahal ,SKGS ,Meenakshi college , certainly too much of music in too short radius.If some one can put the missed song lists that would be great.

Overall a very good concert .