The gathering at the Chettinad Harishree Vidyalayam on the third-day justified the objective of Svanubhava 2010 jointly organised by Matrka and YACM. The young were in full attendance to hear the discussion between Rajiv Menon and S.P. Balasubramaniam on ‘Music in Films.’
The two popular personalities of filmdom started with the first talkie and how it had graduated into movies completely based on music. A reference was made to the actors of that period whose primary qualification was the capacity to sing. Mention was made of M.M. Dhandapani Desikar in the film ‘Nandanar’ and T.M. Krishna sang the lines of ‘Varugalamo Ayya,’ on request.
It was a breezy conversation with SPB reeling off interesting anecdotes and Rajiv Menon acting as a suitable foil. The brilliance of the composers of yesteryear was repeatedly recalled with illustrations.
Open House found the veteran fielding questions from the audience with charm.
Vijay Siva stepped in for O.S. Tyagarajan and brothers, whose concert was scheduled but cancelled. Supported by R.K. Sriram Kumar on the violin, Arun Prakash on the mridangam and Anirudh Athreya on the ganjira, Siva presented a performance which had a lot to offer young aspirants.
The format, for instance and the placement of swarakalpana to attract the audience, alapana and touching of rich phrases for the intellectual touch. ‘Sri Nathathi Guruguho Jayathi’ in Mayamalavagowla (Dikshitar), ‘Aparama Bakthi’ (Tyagaraja) in Pantuvarali with a brief preface of the raga appended with a niraval, the condensed but intense version of Thodi alapana followed by ‘Karthikeya Gangeya’ (Sivan) adding swaras were the main items of Vijay Siva’s recital.
‘Abhimanamen’ in Begada and ‘Bagyadha Lakshmi’ in Sriragam also figured in his agenda.
Sriram Kumar, Arun Prakash and Anirudh Athreya exploited their time properly thus proving the significance of their roles in a concert.
But then it was sad to notice that many left after the dialogue on film music, proving that the sway of cinema and glamour is hard to resist.
