Mahadevan Sankaranarayanan - Meenakshi College K.K. Nagar West, Virugambakkam

[HarishankarK]

Date: 22 Dec 2015, 6:30pm onwards

Violin - S D Ananthapadmanabhan
Mridangam - Ramesh

The concert started only at 7pm because the artistes were delayed and very poor audience size. The hall has a capacity of 150 persons but the peak audience would have been around 30 people. Towards the end only 20 people were in attendance. This sabha is on VembuliammanKoil street, which is were I live and this was one of the very badly affected streets during the Chennai rain-flood deluge. Still we have ankle deep water puddles in some places in our street. That must have been the reason for the poor turn out.
Nevertheless the main vocalist and accompanists were full of energy and performed well.

Song list

Raga sketch - Pranatosmi Devam - Nattai - Tulasivanam. Swarams. Full throated, loud music - his voice was already in excellent confident form. No warming up needed for this guy.
Mundu Venuga - Darbar - T. okay presentation.
Behag short alap - violin return - Smara Janaka Shubhacharita - Swathi Tirunal. Swarams. Till this song not much impact in the concert.
Sri Ranganathaya Namaste - Dhanyasi - MD - This song was sung just for about 2-3 minutes but was so effective. Pure Dhanyasi came out from the very beginning of the song to the end. I would like to hear someday a full fledged Dhanyasi from this artiste. He sang this so well. After the concert got over I was still humming the pallavi and Dhanyasi in my way back. Such was his presentation. I wish he had sung few more sangatis in the samashti charanam. Maybe it's MD's greatness of the way he sang this song.

Submain - Poorvikalyani - Inda Paramukham yedu - Neraval and Swarams @ Silayo Nee oru silayao. Predictable and having heard TVS sing it so many times - it was rather boring for me. I wish he had picked up some Syama Sastri number instead. Otherwise he sang well.
No filler.
Kharaharapriya Main - Alapana was good but lacked the compassionate bhava aspects that usually this raga brings out - Rama Neeyada Prema - this was a little surprise. He started from Anupallavi - Kamini Vesha Dhari so the pallavi only 2-3 sangatis were sung.... I prefer that songs are started from pallavi so was little irritated. But he sang very well. The neraval as Tana sowkyamuna was elaborate and swaras were good as well. Taniavartanam by mrodangam artiste was really good and he received claps two times in the during the course of his tani.
Hamsanandi sketch - Needu Mahima Pogada - HMB. Very well sung.
Eppo Varuvaaro - Jonpuri - GKB
English Note
Petravalum nee ... un iru padangal panindom - madhyamavathi viruttam - Karpagame. Viruttam was good but song made no impact.
Managalam -Pavamana and something in Surutti.

This guy has a lot of vidwath and at times sings exactly like his father. His voice has a lot of Gambheeram and clarity of words is also there. What I liked most was that in each of the songs the raga is unmistakably clear at the very beginning itself. Only during the Poorvikalyani alap I was reminded of Behag in some places - maybe it was just me but I did feel Behag disturbing me a bit during his Purvi kalyani alap. He has a lot of energy and extreme confidence for someone so young. Which is good.
The whole concert was very loud. And very fast as well. Sowkkyam aspect was missing. there were not many sangatis for the songs and the sangatis were not clear. He needs to work on the melodic aspects and sowkya bhava. And include 'non-MMI' items as well in his repertoire. The concert got over at 8:45pm I think because of lack of a decent sized audience.
Violin was just okay. He slipped in places in Behag and some other songs as well. Maybe it was just not his day. But he was overshadowed totally by the confidence of Mahadevan.

[jodha]

Mahadevan has a lot of plusses.But it will b better if he keeps his style like his father but present those items that his iconic father never ventured into.In Jaya TV markazhi utsavam for the first time I heard TVS singing a kriti in saarsangi.So it is high time Mahadevan tread a different path than his father.Otherwise in spite of his talents he will be in abeyance.Many TVS rasikas do not attend his concerts now a days because of his boring list.How many rasikas can understand
manodharmam !Time for Mahadevan to introspect.