R. Suryaprakash, Chicago Thyagaraja Utsavasam, 4th June 2016

[vasanthakokilam]

I happened to catch Suryaprakash's Chicago Thyagaraja Utsavam Concert last Saturday (4th June 2016) at the Hindu Temple Of Greater Chicago. He was provided excellent accompaniments by Srimushnam Rajarao on the mridangam and Kamalakiran Vinjamuri on the violin and Karthik on the Ganjira

Song list:
sIthapathE - khamas - Thyagaraja
Namorala - devagandhari - Thyagaraja
Ka guha - kosalam - koteeswara Iyer
Koluvai - bhairavi - Thyagaraja
Thani
RTP - Adi, dual naDai - kapi - "Swararaga Sudha rasa yutha - sangeetham sadaanandam".
First half tisram 2nd half chatusram.
Swaras in kapi, sankarabharanam, for swara raga..and andolika for raga sudharasa ,all in tisra nadai
Kapi swaram in chatusram rounded off with korvai in chatusram + tisram.

Tillana - sindhubhairavi - Rajarao on Raghavendra swami

Due to time constraints the concert was a short one but Suryaprakash sang a great concert. It started with a brisk Khamas and flowed into a pious Devagandari. Kosalam provided a nice variation. I sensed it is a vivadi raga but I had to check it out later to learn more about Kosalam.

Suryaprakash then launched into a grand bhairavi alapana. It has been a while since I listened to a live Bhairavi main. Koluvai was highly enjoyable and the kalpanaswara singing was quite dynamic. Kamala Kiran also showed his prowess in Bhairavi, a few times invoking some familiar phrases from Viriboni.

Srimushnam Rajarao and Karthick's thani was quite attractive.Earlier in the day Raja Rao gave a lec-dem on laya and it was interesting to follow the points he made during his thani.

What followed was a brief RTP due to time constraints. But Suryaprakash still packed it in with an interesting double nadai pallavi in kApi.

He finished the concert with a thillana composed by Srimushnam Rajarao.

It was a very fulfilling concert.

Suryaprakash is on a mini tour playing in a few cities in the U.S.A. His next concert is in San Jose this weekend ( Sunday June 12th 2016 ) at the CET Solo Theater.

[arasi]

Kokilam,
Doubly pleasing, this--to hear from you after a spell with a review and then, it is Suryaprakash's concert as well!

It's already June (didn't notice that!) and now I remember Surya mentioning his short tour. I have to wait until the end of the year to hear him in Chennai and Bengaluru (which is buzzing with concerts these days but it still beats me why he rarely sings there. Organizers, please pay attention!).

Hope the San Jose concert is well publicized.

[rshankar]

What was the pallavi?

[vasanthakokilam]

Rajesh, I have updated the song list above with the pallavi line along with some laya details. The RTP had a few Sukshma in laya matters which keeps the RTP lively even if I don't understand the underlying technicalities, the effects manifest themselves in the overall aesthetics.

On the melody front, he put to clever use his pallavi line 'Swararaga Sudha Rasa' during kalpanaswara by ending with Swararaga Sudha for Shankarabaranam and 'raga sudha rasa' for Andolika. Audience likes this kind of subtle spices...Nice!

[arasi]

Suryaprakash has to be appreciated for his sensitivity to lyrics and for his imaginative approach to playing around with words.