Amrutha Venkatesh – Vocal
Karaikkal Venkatasubramaniam – Violin
Toronto Gowrishankar – Mrudangam
Approximate Songlist:
01. evari bOdana (varNam) – AbOgi – Adi
02. gAnamUrtE (R, S @ pallavi) – gAnamUrti – Adi
03. santAnagOpAlakriSNam (sketch) – khamAs – rUpakam
04. nIvAda gAna (S @ satyam) – sAranga – khaNDa cApu
05. tAyE yaSOde (R, N @ kAlinil cilambu, S, T) – tODi – Adi
06. paccai mAmalaippOl (vruttam) in bilahari, hindOLam, kalyANi, and sindhu bhairavi, followed by ranga bArO pAnDuranga – sindhu bhairavi – Adi
07. cinnanjiru kiLiyE – rAgamAliga – tiSra
08. uDuppi krishnanA – bEhAg – Adi
09. tillAna – katanakutUkalam
The Hare Krishna Centre in Tiruvanmiyur is a lovely, calm place overlooking the sea, and the concerts there are held in a pandal (tentage) set up outdoors, with the artistes able to see the sea while singing. The ambience is perfect for music by dusk, but it was just warm and uncomfortable during the afternoon (no fans). Amrutha began her concert with five people in the audience; she must have been rather disappointed. She sang a nice gAnamUrti ragam with smooth brigha sangathis in the PDNS region in the madhya stAyi. Thankfully, she did not belabour the alapanai and kept it concise. After a slower madhyama kala rendition of the nice krithi (one of the more tolerable vivAdis for me), she sang elaborate swaras with the MPMG, oriented swaras dealt with beautifully. Her khamAs sketch was noteworthy for the elongated N3 conclusion. Her tODi ragam was classical and covered many of the important phrases in the raga. Her kArvai at the panchamam and the panchamam-centric phrases were nice. With several artistes, I note an ability to start off a rAga phrase beautifully but an inability to give it direction and take it to a suitable conclusion. Amrutha has a very specific sense of direction when sings alapanais – each phrase takes a predetermined turn and ends accurately where she intends it to. It is a nice quality in her singing. I love tAyE yaSOda and was happy when she took it up. Her neraval was thorough in two speeds. The highlight of the concert for me was her vruttam that came after the thani – her bilahari and sindhu bhairavi were particularly excellent.
Amrutha did not seem all that enthused, or perhaps I was a bit put off by the abysmal turnout for a good musician. Her music was even and of consistent quality, but there were no twists and turns and moments of inspiration – the “chu chu†and “aha†moments. Additionally, she needs to vary her kalapramanam more. I’m all for slower singing, but every concert needs variety (MDR, her idol, had plenty of variety in his). She has a good voice and sings with good classicism.
Karaikkal Venkat was reasonably good on the violin (disciple of TNK). He reproduced raga phrases appropriately and gave good kalpanaswara responses to some tricky eDuppus. His gAnamUrti essay was as good as Amrutha’s but his tODi was lacking. While he used many of TNK’s stock phrases, he couldn’t weave the isolated phrases together to make a coherent, unified alapanai. The panchamam-centric phrases in the mandra and madhya stAyi were repetitive. He has a nice technique and good shruti shuddam.
Toronto Gowrishankar accompanied competently and the thani was short. I was wholly unimpressed by his playing for krithis, neravals, and kalpanaswaras, but he did not hinder the concert either.
It was a decent concert.