Date: Sunday, March 8, 2015
Artists: Smt. Anuradha Sridhar, Sri Srikanth Chary, and Sri Shriram Brahmanandam and students
Type of concert: V3 – violin, vINa, vocal
Venue: Lakireddy Auditorium, Siva Vishnu Temple, Livermore, CA
I was visiting California for work, and took a detour via the Bay Area for the weekend, when I heard about this concert on Sunday afternoon. I have heard so many wonderful things about Smt. Anuradha and her students, that I was desperate to squeeze this concert in between a family lunch and my flight home.
The List:
aruNOdayamE – tAna varNam-bhauLi-Sri LGJ
tridEvi pushpAnjali – rAgamAlika-Sri LGJ
sendil mevum – nIlAmbari-Sri LGJ
Sri mahAgaNapatiravatu mAm – gauLa – Sri MD
nAdalOluDai – kalyANavasantam – Sri Tyagaraja
tAmadam tagAdayyA – mOhanakalyANi – Sri Gopala Iyer
rAmakathA sudhA – madhyamAvati – Sri Tyagaraja
yenna tavan seidanai – kApi – P. Sivan
Had to leave -
We were late getting in, and missed the announcements at the start of the concert. We walked in to hear the last part of the outline of bhauLi by Smt. Anuradha, followed by the tAna varNam, aruNOdayamE.
The format of presentation was very nice –the vocalists, 4 of Smt. Anuradha’s students and the violinists (Smt. Anuradha and her student) and the vINA players (Sri Srikanth and two of his students) alternated the sangatis for the varNam.
This was followed by the tridevi pushpAnjali (on lakshmi, sarasvati, and pArvati) from jaya jaya devi, the nATyam for which Sri LGJ was the vAggeyakAra, in rAgamAlika – hamsadhvani for the first part, then nATTai for pArvati…I am not sure if the portion on sarasvati was in the eponymous sarasvati, and the verse on lakshmi in janaranjani perhaps?
The group then went on to present the beautiful padavarNam of Sri LGJ in nIlAmbari on his iSTa devatA, murugan. It was preceded by a very nice AlApana by Sri Srikanth. In the padavarNam, while the three groups alternated for the pallavi, anupallavi, and caraNam, the instrumentalists played the svara passages, and the vocalists sang the sAhitya for the same. I liked this format very much.
This was followed by SrI mahAgaNaptiravatu mAm in gauLa, decorated by svaras by all three groups.
nAdalOluDai in kalyANavasantam was then presented – with an introduction as to how Sri LGJ made this rAga and this kRti his very own, with his brilliant interpretation. Both Smt. Anuradha and Sri Srikanth presented a lovely AlApana.
Next came a beautiful mOhanakalyANi – tAmadam tagAdayyA, a composition of Sri LGJ’s guru, and his father, SrI Gopala Iyer. I have heard many presentations of this composition, but it was really something else to hear the third and fourth generations of this guru-SiSya parampara present this piece…a part of their cultural inheritance, if you will. I get the same feeling when my daughter dances to the compositions of her grand-guru.
Then came the main - a wonderful AlApana of madhyamAvati – Smt. Anuradha and Sri Srikanth shared the honors, followed by the Saint’s rAma kathA sudhA – extensive and melodious svaras at bhAmA maNi really elevated the kRti to another plane altogether for me.
For the next piece, the SiSyas did not participate. The announcement was that after hearing SrI LGJ play this song, the very moved composer dedicated it to him…Smt. Anuradha and Sri Srikanth proved to be worthy of the challenge before them…they did not play their instruments, but made their violin and vInA actually ‘sing’ yenna tavan seidanai of Papanasam Sri Sivan! Truly a wonderful gift from the maestros…Just this piece was worth the experience for me.
Unfortunately, two hours had passed by now, and I absolutely had to leave (very reluctantly, as I heard that the next was going to be tIrAda viLaiyATTu piLLai). I am hoping that someone else who stayed for the whole offering will complete the list.
All pieces were preceded by a very succinct introduction by the students – explaining the reason why the piece was being presented (a composition of Sri LGJ, or a composition that Sri LGJ with/without his sister Smt. Srimati Brahmanandam made his own uniquely) – the only piece where this was not clear was Sri mahA gaNapatiravatu mAm. The students who made the announcements did a great job, and I really liked the way they referred to their grand-gurus as Lalgudi mAmA, and Srimati mAmi. The only cribs I had was that (very much like the concerts of Sri Krishnan and Smt. Vijayalakshmi), there was no nereval at all, and that they should have made the announcements after the pieces, allowing us to enjoy identifying the rAga. The only places this worked for me was the bhauLi piece because I missed the introduction, and the main, for which the announcement was made after the elaborate AlApana.
All in all, it was a very wonderful finale to a week that was already fantastic with work, good friends, and family all mixed in perfect proportions!!
