Subhashini Parthasarathy’s Thodi in her concert for Kartik Fine Arts proved the vocalist’s calibre and grip over her art. There is not much that one can do differently with such a popular raga as Thodi, and therefore the alapana was not too innovative. But nevertheless, it was an enjoyable alapana, one that made for a very relaxed evening. Tyagaraja’s ‘Raju Vedala’ was the song chosen to follow the alapana and again, it was rendered beautifully.
Violinist A.G.A. Gnanasundaram did a pretty good job of following the vocalist. As expected, niraval and swaras appeared at the traditional point ‘Kaveri’. The other major element of the concert was again a pleasing Dharmavathi ragam-talam-pallavi. Subhashini’s style of singing — to focus more on aesthetics rather than gymnastics — could be noticed here too, for the alapana was neat and sans too much of briga effervescence.
A Chatusrajai Triputai pallavi was taken up and in the niraval, the singer took a small tour into Sahana. Swaras went into Malayamarutam and Nattakurinji. Ganapathiraman on the mridangam and Nanganallur Swaminathan on the ghatam provided percussive support to the concert.
