Tirupathi V Keshanna - Nadaswaram
Gajendra - Tavil
Sethuraman - Tavil
Sri Rama Seva Mandali - Fort High School Grounds
01 May 2013
karuNimpa - sahAnA - Adi - sketch
tulasidaLamula - MMG - rUpaka - T (S)
kAmAkShi - bhairavi - cApu - SS (R)
marugElarA - jayantashrI - Adi - T
? - mandAri - Adi - (S)
mAmava paTTAbhirAma - maNirangu - cApu - MD
RTP - shubhapantuvarALi - Adi-2 (sama eDuppu)
One just had to go to Rama Seva Mandali -- Vyasarpadi Kothandaraman plus Ramani mama (plus holiday). Reached the venue around 4 15 -- 15 minutes late for beginning of Sri Kothandaraman's concert. There were four or five attendees, and not a hair from the heads of any of the organizers. After I waited for some time, someone came and told that Ramani madam (!) was not feeling well, and so that programme is cancelled. That still didn't answer my ongoing concern, of course. I asked him what had happened of the nAdaswaram programme. It will happen at the following concert's timing, he said.
Of course it is good to not return Ramani mama's audience empty-handed and all that, but to make Sri Kothandaraman's audiences wait for two and a half hours isn't very considerate, imho. Extremely luckily, I'd taken this book called "Puppeteer" by Arindam Mukharjee for reading during the commute ... and of course the nearby City Market offers a reasonably engaging walk.
The start was further delayed by a few minutes because Kothandaraman had expected a preamble before the concert commenced.
The mAyAmALavgauLa and more so, the bhairavi, were made terrible experience by the sudden absence of the soundman. Kothandaraman tends to move the nAdaswaram around as he plays, and the positioning of mic was such that it received the full blast during some of the mandra and madhyasthAyis, and nothing at all during the rest and during the tArasthAyi.
None of the delectable detail in Kothandaraman's juicy gamakams was visible. Besides, he also constructed his bhairavi phrase-by-phrase, having Sri Keshanna reply to them. Such a thing works, for bhairavi especially, ONLY, and ONLY when it's MMI with a specialist accompanist.
This meant that there was little "flow" to make up for the damage done to the technique by the sound system.Nonetheless, the MMG was good to hear; I don't even remember hearing MMG on a nAdaswaram.
Eventually the sound man came, and reduced amplification substantially. It could have actually been turned off completely, I felt. RSM is a large venue, even for a nAdaswaram, but our ears can quickly train to hear softer sounds when they are even.
Anyway, the maNirangu was beautiful. The shubhapantuvarALi was Kothandaraman-class. The tAnam was beautiful too, including nice jArus -- although very brief and mostly predictable. I noticed that when playing mgrs kind of phrases, Keshanna exaggerated the (unnecessary) ga anuswara between the ri and the sa, where as Kothandaramn played it subtly (whenever he did, that is). This, and some other things made me wonder if Keshanna belongs to the same school even.
The percussion support was unobstrusive.
The post-tani announcement didn't include any justification or apology for the delayed start.