The concert was held on monday. There was a power holiday because of power cut in office and I had just enough time to attend this concert that was held in a flat at CIT colony. Incidentally the concert was organized by an IyengAr family for the past 43 years. A gentleman (organizer , I donot know his name, someone can add) spoke how his father organized and how he is taking it forward and he jokingly said apart from ariyakudi,gnb and ssi all of them inclusive of santhanam,dkj and kvn have been performing in this private gokulAshtami series.
1. missed the begadA
2. tAye yashODA (R N S) - tOdi -OVK
3. sAmiKKi sari evarE (R) - kedaragowlai - p.sivan
4. vasudevayani (RS, NS ,S)- kalyAni - T
5. ksheerasAgara (R) -devagAndhAri - T
6A.enna thavam seidhanE (R S T)- kApi - p.sivan
6B.tani
7.rAjagOpAlam bhajEham - mOhanam - MD
8A.viruththam vanamAl varaiyE - bhAgeshri
+ eNNUvAr iDarai - yamunAkalyAni
8B. krishnA beghaNE bArO - yamunAkalyAni - vyAsavarAyar
9A. viruththam pachai mAl pOl meni ... kannA manivannA malaiyappA - shivaranjani
9B. kurai onrum illai - shivaranjani -rAjAji
Few Pluses of the concert:
1. Though arrived at the fag end of neraval of todi ,still the swaras were very expansive and there was some excellent returns from the violinist.kalyAni was unsagging with excellent swara kalpana manOdharmam with more emphasis on nishAdam as a pivot for every volley of swaras
2. The alApana of kedaragOwlai and kApi were excellent . Nice to hear the late order enna thavam being promoted as a main . An excellent breath control in the kApi krithi especially in the lines manathil porAmai and a swara aksharams in kApi with long sarvalaghu swaras were aesthetic and perfect.
3. Both the viruththams and the mOhanam were pleasing and an overall high energy support by the mridangist was perfect
One minus of the concert:
Despite the audience request of ksheerasAgara, would have been nice if SuryaprakAsh had avoided a close overlap of devagAndhAri after kedarAgowlai. For the first time this musician surprised me with such a close overlap
Few superpluses of the concert :
1. gOpinAth is turning out to be one of the best vocal accompaniment these days .His azhuttham ,nAdham emanating from this divine instrument , real shadow like replay.Most importantly his returns are always non pre emptive ,avoids any patterns prior to the vocalist singing the same .
2. Little detour to explain this super plus would help .The concert was held in a L shaped hall ,there was a 2 year old baby needless to say the baby was cute wearing a readymade panjakajam veshti .The baby was mostly attentive to the entire concert .Towards the kurai onrum illai (an audience request),this baby held by a young man was gesturing his little hand up and down standing right behind the violinist . All of a sudden this young baby was a cynosure of all the eyes perhaps excepting the violinist and the vocalist who were away from the line of sight. SuryaprakAsh at that time was repeating the line "kaNNukku Theriyaamal niRkinRaay kaNNaa" few times absorbed in shivaranjani rAgabhAvam .When suryaprakAsh turned his head towards the kid behind the violinst suddenly changed this line and sang "kaNNukku TherindhE niRkinRaay kaNNaa" and continued this krithi without losing the emotive shivaranjani bhavam even for a second. anubhavinchu padrAn(he enjoys and sings) and just transmits the same to every rasikA
3. To top it all the concert ended with free prasadhAm , for the first time I was experiencing both sweet and salt pongal from parthasarAthy temple . I lost count of cashews
certainly more than the no of krithis :/ in the concert.