kv gOpalakrishnan - kanjirA
This sabha usually conducts the concert near dasaprakash hotel in one of the kalyAna mandapams at egmore. But I noticed kalAkruthi was conducting in a different place at egmore. 15, Halls Road was the address of the concert hall, it took me atleast 20 minutes to find this place . Finally I stopped at a potti kadai to buy a 50 paisa halls to reach 15 halls road where the mridangist did not arrive. The mridangist took more time to spot the sabha.
The concert had 30 minutes late start , with my expectation that this vidwan coming from the great semmangudi school to start with a melakartha 15 to give a bang start as usually when concert starts late they start with a very very popular no. Perhaps I must have swallowed completely the 50 paise halls as what I got as a start was 50 +15 melakartha
ata tAla varnam, certainly felt more happy when the varnam was complete.madurai mani and semmangudi have taken shriranjani rAgam to himalayan heights with their respective renderings . BMK jr , a very much semmangudi bAni style musician tried to give a more gamakam filled delivery for a great sivan krithi popularized by mmi .shreeranjani alApanai and swaras were both excellent , perhaps the percusssionists were playing at the right fast pace but not too synchronized with the singer.
Semmangudi has perhaps created an everlasting best impression of pancharatna krithi rendition , I am pretty sure no one can come close with his continous gamakam in his pancharatna rendition .Bmk jr did render a fantastic rendition of Arabi pancharatna krithi, especially Every line of samayAniki dagu mATa lADa with some brilliant firework filled taps of ramesh was very apt and the best number of the concert
pantuvarALi alApanai and swaras were excellently rendered but certainly the neraval of MD's krithi did not have the right polish . Two fillers one a rare ThyagarAja krithi in neelAmbari and a fast paced candrajyoti was both very good . There was 18 minutes of alApanai of bhairavi and it was excellent . But BMK jr choose to run the DKJ popularized krithi quite fast without neraval and the swaras(14 minutes only)were very good but certainly not very expansive . Liked the shenjuruTTi thillanA more than behAg javali .
chandramouli was very good in bhairavi , his bowing had a little excessive volume . ramesh a sishya of KM , had lot of bountiful strokes but certainly there were lots of places where his over exuberance of strokes was bit intrusive to the krithi rendition. gOpalAkrishnan gave a good support their tani was quite impressive. Overall BMK Jr with his weighty voice can preferably add more polish especially in neraval.
1. VanajAkshi (varnam) - KalyAni - Pallavi Gopala Iyer
2.ini Oru kanam (R,S) - shreerranjani - pApanAsam Sivan
3. sAdiNchaNE - Arabi - T
4. rAmanAtham bhajEham (R N S)- pantuvarAli - MD
neraval is "kumAra guruguha mahitham kavi brindAdi sannutham"
5.neekE dayaraaka - neelAmbari -T
6. bhAgAyanayya - candrajyOti - T
7A. raksha bettarE(R S T) - bhairavi - T
7B. tani
8. vagalADi bOdanalaku - bEhAg - Tirupati Narayanaswamy
9. thillAnA "thiranA thara dheem ta" - shenjuruTTi -veenA seshannA
10. pavamAnA + mangalam kOSalEndrA