A flawless gayaki (singing) style is what most flautists strive to achieve. Amith Nadig has accomplished this and much more.
Training under veteran R.K. Srikantan, Amith is one of the few youngsters to be awarded an A grade from the All India Radio. The flautist captivated the audience with his mellifluous music in a concert at Kochi recently.
He began the concert with a sprightly rendition of the Abhogi varnam ‘Evaribodha' in three speeds. Mysore Vasudevachar's Roopaka tala composition in raga Kamboji, ‘Lambodara' had a neat niraval. Edapally Ajith (violin) followed it up with excellent swara essays Unexpected scale shifts and the ease in playing high octave passages marked the flautist's swaraprasthara. Considering the difficulty in achieving clarity in fast phrases in high octaves, this was a good feat by the young flautist.
Erudite performance
Next came a brisk rendition of ‘Niravadhi sukhada' in raga Ravichandrika. The best alapana was of a subsidiary piece in Kalyani, in which the artiste adeptly caught the true fervour of the raga. The elaboration unravelled the artiste's wide manodharma and flexibility in merging quick, distant phrases together. The kriti chosen was Swati Tirunal's ‘Pankaja lochana' in Misra chappu tala.
The korvai swaras came in all blends and delighted the audience. After a peak into Bilahari raga, Amith played ‘Smarasada manasa' in the same raga. A progressive approach to essay raga Keeravani saw the artiste follow the note-by-note approach. He covered all the essential nuances of the raga bringing out the quality of the raga. Tyagaraja's ‘Kalikiyunde gada' was rendered with a brief niraval on ‘Bhagavathagre sarulaku.'
K.U. Jayachandra Rao on the mridangam left no loose ends, packing up the gaps fully. He was quick to grasp the rhythmic patterns of the swara phrases and caught up with the mukthaippus correctly. Amith seemed to muse at phrases as he went on improvising on single phrases in subtle myriad ways. The tani with just the mridangam was another flawless exercise.
Amit retained the heaviness of the concert in the concluding pieces as well. ‘Govardhana giridhara' in Darbari Kanada and ‘Tamburi meetidava' in Sindhubhairavi. Thus in the few numbers that the flautist played, he could unfold the true Carnatic flavour and essence of the music. The programme was organised by Dharani society.
