Veena Concerts - This Season

[Gamakam]

Soaking in music for the past few days.

There is a talk that Veena may go extinct. The instrument is in very very safe hands.

Although I didn't plan it initially, have been listening to at least one Veena concert per day. The artistes have been invariably exemplary in their skill and sensitivity. The ease at which R.S.Jayalakshmi handled the 'nadai' pallavi in Bhairavi was something that will stay in my mind for a long long time. The granduer of bhairavi calls for the queen of the instruments to bring it out in the best possible way.

Ashwin Anand - a disciple of Sangita Kalanidhi R.Vedavalli presented a detailed shankarabaranam. The extended phrases bringing out the subtle and super oscillating gamakas were superb.

A young vidvan Guhan Venkataraman presented a short but a fully satisfying concert - exploring mohanam as the central piece. Kamalkiran Vinjamuri is already a popular violinist in Chennai. There is not a concert when he does not steal the show. Although not intended, he nonchalantly overshadows the main artiste. To Guhan's credit, despite Kamalkiran's brilliant playing, the main artiste for the day was Guhan. This 12th standard kid makes one feel that the future of the instrument is in safe hands.

I visited Academy yesterday only to have lunch. The karaharapriya I heard pulled me in to the concert hall to look out for the artiste. I have not heard Anantha Narayanan before. The neraval at 'manasuna' and the swarams that followed and the beautiful behag that he played to close his concert were sublime.

The best concert of the season so far has been the one of Nirmala Rajasekar. She presented 2 RTPs at Sri Parvati in the festival conducted by Prof.TRS. I have heard her name before, but have not heard her perform. There was a traffic jam in front of mylapore fine arts to listen to a popular cine singer perform semi classical music. If the Chennai rasikas are worth their hype, they would have blocked Eldams road for Nirmala's concert. It is difficult to say if the instrument is an extension of the artiste or the artiste becomes a part of instrument. She savors each end every bit of nectar that she serves through her playing. Her playing is both an aural and a visual treat. To use the cliche, it was poetry in motion. She presented a khanda nadai pallavi in Gambeera Nattai. A raga you don't get to hear elaborated. Her exploration in the mandra sthayi were jazzy and reminded of a bass guitar usages in several Ilaiyaraja songs. It was pristine classical stuff when she elaborated shanmugapriya. She did several 'vyavaharams' without compromising the sowkhyam one bit. She segmented the pallavi lines to create an innovative flourish (poruttams) to reach the pallavi eduppus.

I am yet to hear my favorite vainika, Jayanthi Kumaresh. An opportunity would come soon I guess.

Let us face it. Vocal chords are limited. I hardly hear artistes who can cover two octaves. For the ones who claim to enjoy the words, I know you are lying. Neither you nor the artiste (not all but many) give a damn for words. If you are interested in the sarees and jimikis, go ahead. Please block the roads for having a 'look' at your favorite vocalist.

If you are a real music buff (and not a bluff) that you claim to be, please attend instrumental concerts. It pains to see such wonderful artistes perform in a big hall where the no. of rats outnumber the rasikas.

Posting in a hurry. Rushing to make it to Injikudi 's concert. Not that I wont find seats

[PUNARVASU]

Very happy to see that many youngsters are taking to veena.

[Sivaramakrishnan]

Gamakam's concerns are true!

[rajaraman]

Thanks for posting this exclusively on veena concerts. I am a veena music lover from the days of Balachander,Doraiswamy Iyengar, R. Pitchumani, Emani Sankara Sastry days.
Please post when if you were able to attend Jayanthi Kumaresh

[rshankar]

And Gamakam - do not forget Smt. Gayatri - while many others 'play' the vINa, IMO, she (and possibly Smt Jayanthi) caress it. She seems to have a 1-on-1 with the instrument, and the audience seems purely incidental - but what an experience!!

[cienu]

An article by Veejay Sai in today's "The Hindu"
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/che ... 235961.ece

[bilahari]

For the ones who claim to enjoy the words, I know you are lying. Neither you nor the artiste (not all but many) give a damn for words.

If people do not truly care about the words, something else MUST be drawing the hordes to vocal music over instrumental, mustn't it? I think we find words, or syllables even, to be relatable and perhaps more memorable, whether or not we understand them or even care about their import. I'm sure many of us, including me, hum lyrics to songs, or neraval lines we enjoy, without understanding them. Yet they stick in our memory, and they give us something to grasp. Were we to listen to a neraval of an unfamiliar line in a violin concert, for instance, would we be as easily able to recapitulate the variations of the neraval later with only the sangatis but no lyrics in our minds? I suspect not. Our is, for better or worse, a vocal tradition. Even our alapanais and tAnams have syllables that really need not be there but are: in contrast, HM vocalists seem to sing much more akAram with minimal ta-da-ri-na and certainly no nom-ta-ta, and they also seem to savour and revere instrumental music more than we do south of the Vindhyas. Just my thoughts.

I do share your concerns about people's apathy to instrumental music in CM. I also agree that there is - beyond mere range, which is less important to me - a certain purity in the notes produced by an instrument that I rarely find in a voice. There is so much clarity about the exact swara constitution of even complex brighas in an instrument like the veena, and that alone both drives me to listen to instrumental music and inspires me to seek that greater insight into ragas that instruments uniquely provide (Srikant has described this on the survey thread).

Gamakam and others, please do not neglect to attend concerts by Smt R. Ramani and Smt. Kalyani Ganesan, who are both fine vainikas but rarely featured on the circuit.

[srikant1987]

There was a thread where Rajeshnat and Nick voiced their thoughts on vocal vs instrumental music too. They agreed that to an absolutely lay ear, instrumental music maybe more accessible, but as you get to know the general order and structure of things, vocal concerts become more gratifying. I think that this first part of "getting to know" happens nearly automatically upon exposure -- whereas the subsequent "purity of instrumental music" which Bilahari (and I!) relish is something a rasika needs to rather actively seek out.

The learning and practice curve for instruments is rather more demanding too (perhaps even more so for veena); in fact a very respected vocalist told me that instrumentalists need to devote roughly thrice the time vocalists need to. If the number of people who drop in to instrumental classes is less, the number who actually come out as capable musicians will be even fewer!

So if there are so few musicians and concerts, won't people crowd to attend them? No, unfortunately. I have sometimes experienced this with town buses -- rare routes often have many empty seats. Because they're rare, people don't bother to wait for them, and take a two-route approach or some other alternative instead.

[Rsachi]

Thanks to this thread, I have just discovered and have been enjoying the Veena tracks of Smt. Nirmala Rajasekar all day!
A Big Thanks, Gamakam!

[Nick H]

They agreed that to an absolutely lay ear, instrumental music maybe more accessible, but as you get to know the general order and structure of things, vocal concerts become more gratifying

To the complete newcomer, the only thing that may be clear in instrumental music (apart from its beauty) is that the unaccompanied sections are some sort of improvisation. After that, we have to go to vocal music to detect kalpana swara first, and then neraval. Then we can return to unaccompanied instrumental and realise what we missed the first time.

I'm sure there are many similar comings and goings, including those that I have yet to come across. I don't know how many buses I have to catch before I can say that I understand even elementary basics. Sometimes I concentrate and try: other times I just soak up the beauty. The great thing is both options are ever present.

Sadly, my veena count this season is low --- but it was one of Ashwin Anand's, and it was magic. As well as soaking up the beauty, I understood that the veena can even reflect the vocal style of Smt R Vedavalli.

[Rangadu]

Excellent article by Veejay Sai in the Hindu about the decline of the Veena......yes it is true.....

in my younger days we had atleast a good 25 top notch vainikas whose names we could easily say....

today it is difficult to take a handful of names.....very sad!

Someone must do something to encourage youngsters to take to the veena

[arasi]

I would rather say, there are a number of them--about half a dozen are members here, among vaiNikAs.

It's vINA concerts which are far and few. Yet, it looks as though things are looking up. We see festivals (which need to give more than half an hour slots to individual players). There were several vINA concerts during the season.

This year's Cleveland Festival had a few too, as in the previous years.

FYI, members here are NSG (vidyaarthi), J&J (Jayshri and Jeyraj), Jayalakshmi Shekar, Iyer Bros and Kalpakam Swaminathan's student Ramakrishnan (Ramki), the ones I know. The youngest among them is Aishwarya Shrinivasan who sings of course, and also plays the vINA!

By the way, welcome to Rasikas.org!