Ranjani Ramakrishnan - Violin
Trivandrum Balaji - Mrudangam
Aniruddh Athreya - Khanjira
Duration: 2h
Approximate Songlist:
01. varNam - kalyANi
02. munnu rAvana [N @ mAnintu, S] - tODi - Adi - T
03. sAkEta nagara [R, N @ rAjita amara bAla, S] - harikAmbOji - rUpakam - Mysore Sadasiva Rao
04. dEvi brOva (sketch) - cintAmaNi - Adi - SS
05. kanna tanDri (R, S @ pallavi) - dEvamanOhari - Adi - T
06. nA jIvadAra (R, S @ pallavi, T) - bilahari - Adi - T
07. navasiddi peTRAlum - kharaharapriya - miSra cApu - NS
08. UrilEn kANiyillai [vruttam?] followed by anrivulagam (tiruppavai) - sindhu bhairavi - Adi
I have heard so much about RM but somehow never got a chance to listen to him when we were living in the same state. So I went to this concert with very high expectations, and he did live up to them!
It was beautiful madhyama kAla singing all the way. RM has a voice that traverses the octaves comfortably and produces brighas with ease, and those swirling passages across the octaves often elicited gasps from a full hall at Naada Inbam that afternoon. His early tODi was a bold move and his presentation added great verve to the concert. While RM sings mEl kAla swaras with ease, I often felt his mEl kAlam was just a tad too fast and too loud to be very musical.
RM demonstrated solid insight into ragas, given how he managed to strike the core of every rAgam he sang. And that is no meagre feat with more ambiguous ragas like harikAmbOji! Even his cintAmaNi sketch immediately revealed the ragam. His dEvi brOva was sung emotively in a slower speed and offered the necessary meditative respite from his energetic madhyama kAlam.
I liked his elaborate bilahari a lot. In particular, he sang a lot of quick passages leading up to the tAra stAyi and these were all done with immaculate shruti shuddam. One particular swoop that took him to the tAra panchamam earned spontaneous applause from an audience chu-chuing its way through the alapanai. A noteworthy feature of his singing is his judicious combination of fast passages with gamaka-rich phrases. Perhaps he can consider varying the type of brighas he sings (rather than mere spiralling patterns across the scale) to further enrich his raga essays. Srikant might have something to add here.
NA jivadAra is a composition that really leaves you with a wholesome understanding of bilahari, and RM has the required finesse for each sangati. I liked his kriti rendition a lot, and his elaborate swaras in two speeds were also very nicely done, and his second speed swaras here were of a comfortable velocity for me.
RM treated the post-main section with respect, delivering a lovely navasiddhi peTRAlum with a lot of raga flourishes in between.
RM's clean, classical singing and mature understanding of ragas really appealed to me. His kriti renditions, while good, did not have the absolute clarity of enunciation I would like, at least on this occasion, especially with his tendency to contort his mouth to one side and produce rather obscured syllables while singing kritis. On a non-musical note, he should also try to minimise his body language while singing. I will stick my neck out and say this fellow Californian will go very far in CM if he keeps up his great work.
Ranjani Ramakrishnan played OK and gave understanding and crisp responses to RM, though her kAlapramANam in raga alapanais consistently did not match RM's, which was jarring. She played some beautiful sangatis ending in D and N in harikAmbOji and her bilahari ragam was also sweet. She should seriously consider using more of her bow though - I feel sorry to see much of it left unused!
Trivandrum Balaji and Aniruddh Athreya also provided decent accompaniment, although I did not feel any particular chemistry between them and RM.
It was a great concert heartily applauded by a warm audience at Raga Sudha.
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