The Narada Gana Sabha hall became a beehive of activity on the occasion of the 81st birthday of Thanjavur S. Kalyanaraman, affectionately referred as SKR, held on June 2, with a series of events organised by Shanmukhapriya in association with the Tanjore S. Kalyanaraman Trust.
The event began with invocation by Vishruthi Girish, who sang ‘Neethan Thunai Neelambari' a popular kriti in ragamalika set to tune by S Kalyanaraman in eight different ragas. It was followed by a group singing of Navaratnamalika of Adi Sankara by the students of Bhushani Kalyanaraman.
An audio visual presentation of SKR by S.B. Khanthan titled ‘SKR-Today' was interesting and featured many young musicians and veterans expressing their views on SKR with his inimitable music interspersed in between.
SKR's knack to use rare ragas and kritis including the expert handling of vivadi ragas were recalled by them.
The programme was presided over by N. Krishnaswami of Narada Gana Sabha when Sanjay Subramanyam was honoured with the ‘SKR Award of Excellence' by N.V. Subramanyam of Saraswathi Vaggeyakkara Trust.
Violin maestro M. Chandrasekaran released the audio CD ‘Geetharthamu,' comprising SKR's live concert held at Philadelphia in 1978.
The award consisted of a citation, gold medal and cash.
The dignitaries and Brinda Venkataramanan reminisced on their association with the most futuristic musician of that time.
Pleasing all the way
This was followed by Sanjay Subramanyam's vocal concert. There can never be a second opinion about the fact that Sanjay's musical mind is a mine of manodharma. His ventures draw from his creativity to please the rasika.
His Arabhi raga expose was full of tonally energised phrases touching the various nuances of the raga.
Tyagaraja's ‘O Rajeevaksha' was a simple presentation sans ornamentation. The next raga essay and the kriti were tributes to SKR. The raga was Karasri, a pratimadyama panchamavarjya raga, a creation of SKR, which was handled with great care and poise and the kriti was ‘Chandrasekarapriya' by Krishnaswami Iyer set to music by SKR. Indeed, comprehending such melodies and elaborating the same are not easy tasks and Sanjay acquitted himself creditably not only with the raga but also in framing the sangatis plus swarakalpana.
The elaboration of Sankarabharanam was a mixed bag. Sanjay apart from the traditional approach and his typical phrases peppered it with variety.
Dikshitar's ‘Sundareswaraya Namasthe' was his choice with swaras centered on the pallavi.
Aesthetically strung swaras were spiced with changing jaunts of rapid-fire notes and drones.
The concert began with a Tamil varnam ‘Sariyo Nee Seyyum Thamadham' in Begada and ‘Siddhi Vinayagane' in Kalavathi of Kavi Kunjara Bharati.
Nagai Muralidharan on the violin painted pictures of perfection and poise in Arabhi, Karasri and Sankarabharanam while Srimushnam Raja Rao powered the concert delectably in the company of K.V. Gopalakrishnan on the ganjira.
