Veteran Vedavalli’s musical expressions on the inaugural day of the Academy’s 85 Annual Conference and Concerts, reiterated her strong faith and humility in presenting the purity and divinity of Carnatic music. One is awed by her grasp of on the ragas’ range and melody, and her proclivity to bring forth the succulent parts of the raga. ‘Meenalochana Brova’ of Syama Sastri carries the quintessence of Dhanyasi and Vedavalli added extra aesthetic flourishes in her niraval and swaras on ‘Syama Krishna Sodari.’
Does one need to go head-long to extract the beauteous phrases of raga? Not necessarily. With her distinctive strokes, the vidushi painted a precise and perfect portrait of Neelambari for Dikshitar’s lesser heard composition ‘Siddhiswaraya Namasthe,’ a Tiruvaroor Panchalinga kriti. Even her parsimonious swara prasathara here bore the stamp of the raga in every swara link she chose.
The raga of the evening Khambodi saw Vedavalli traversing the middle and lower octave sancharas leaving the high end sojourns to her disciple Sumithra. Tyagaraja’s ‘O Rangasayee’ with the organised delineation on ‘Bhooloka Vaikuntham’ and the swara segment were disciplined. Vedavalli’s perception of niraval and swaras are no musical marathons; but melodic and scholarly embellishments.
Unlike many artists who rush through the Ragam Tanam Pallavi as the eleventh hour add on, Vedavalli allocated judicious one-hour duration for her Shanmukhapriya RTP followed by tani avartanam. The pallavi ‘Guruvin Arulai Peravae Sada Ninai Maname’ set to kanda jathi triputa talam was simple but not simplistic.
Some enchanting compositions the veteran dwelt upon included ‘Kanaka Vela Karunaala Vala’ in Sri, Tyagaraja’s ‘Devathi Deva Sadasiva’ in Sindhuramakriya and ‘Saranam Saranam Raghurama’ in Asaveri by Arunachala Kavi.
R.K. Sriramkumar (violin) responded with dignity and reverence. His raga follow-ups in Neelambari, Khambodi and Shanmukhapriya were meticulous. Arun Prakash on the mridangam and Guruprasad on the ghatam provided subtle percussion support, which did not affect the aura of the concert.
