B. Sivakumar, an All India Radio artist, presented an enchanting veena concert under the ‘Eppadi Paadinaro’ series organised by Rasika Ranjana Sabha in association with the Sri Krishna Sweets at the Sabha’s FGN Hall recently.
It was a chaste and austere veena gana for over two hours. Sivakumar was accompanied by his disciple, Salai V. Lakshana, Salem Srinivasan on the mridangam and Krishnaswamy on the ghatam.
Delicate swaras
Starting the concert with a Sri raga varnam, he delighted the audience with Mohanam kriti (‘Bhavanthu’ of Seetha Rajan) and the one in Simhendramadhyamam (‘Andavane’ of Harikesanallur Muthaiah Bhagavatar) with delicate swaras and sargams.
He effortlessly dealt rare ragas such as Karnaranjini and Aagiri (‘Mayamanne’ of Syama Shastri) with ease and poise and delved deep into Sankarabharanam (Tyagaraja’s ‘Swara Raga Sudha’) with ragam and tanam which was sedate and grammatical.
Sivakumar presented pleasant tukkadas ‘Koovi Azhaithal’ of Vali in the raga Valaji and a Lalgudi thillana in the rare raga Ragasri and ended the absorbing concert with ‘Seetha Kalyana Vaibogame’ of Tyagaraja in Kurinji.
Salem Srinivasan and Krishnaswamy were attuned to the main artist and their thani was much enjoyable.
