Live update: Sudha Ragunathan @ MFAC

[jaysriks]

Vocal: Sudha Ragunathan
Mridangam: T Vaidyanathan
Violin: Embar Kannan
Ghatam: Guruprasanna

Started with their school commonly sung abhogi varnam. This was followed by tyagarajas krithi Sri Ganapathim in Saurashtram... This was followed by a good rendition of bilahari ragam... Was reminded of MLV ammas rendition. She chose paridanamitchite...

She did neraval at rokami chutaku... Nice round of crisp calculative swaras followed.. by now the usual crib of d poor acoustics followed.. the artist began dikshitars master piece in brindavana saranga... Ranga pura vihara... Neatly presented... Currently presenting a soulful subhapantuvarali... Few phrases in the upper octaves were brilliant..

[jaysriks]

MLV amma's classic ennalu was chosen... She did find some issues while singing neraval in the lower octave but compensated it during the kalpana Swara rendition..

Nice to hear her sing surruti after a long time... Raga passage was just for five mins.. was wanting for more.. kannan played some beautiful phrases.. once dikshitars beautiful krithi Sri venketa girishamam lokaye was taken up..

[jaysriks]

Expecting an elaborate RTP.. because after the song she asked the mridangist to play the tani.. consecutive concerts is definitely showing its stress in the voice.. it is only during the surruti krithi that her voice opened a bit.. but nevertheless she is managing it well..

[jaysriks]

Just when I was thinking that she should have allocated more time for surruti.. she had planned for a grand four raga pallavi.. when I see the concert padhati being debated in other posts, she chose to sing the great ariyakudi iyengars master p iece pallavi shankarabharanai azhai thodi vadi kalyani durburakku.. each and every raga was taken up for elaboration and she traversed through the ragams with ease..

For a change embar started the tanam and played for durbar and kalyani.. she sang it kv thodi and kalyani.. embar is one of my favourite violinist and he shifted from one raga to another very beautifully..

Pallavi was executed beautifully with trikalam..Swara passages was sung in all the four ragas.. overall she sang the pallavi for nearly one hour..

It was a relief when she didn't give a tani to vaidyanathan again... His tani was just banging... Ghatam artist guruprasanna played a good supportive role..