The Carnatic music scene in the National Capital, for quite some time, has been charged with a continuous stream of musicians from the South who have been performing and delighting the city’s music lovers at various music festivals put up by different organisations. This past weekend, the Ariyakudi Ramanujam Trust, Chennai, organised a tribute to the renowned vocalist Late Ariyakudi Ramanajum in Delhi. The programme consisted of speech by about half a dozen followed by a Carnatic music concert by the Chennai-based vocalist Abhishek Raghuram. The long speech session, in a way, pre-empted the vocalist’s recital time. By the time the concert, organised at the auditorium of the Delhi Tamil Sangam, started, it was almost 8 p.m. and Abhishek’s opening piece, seemed to be a thoughtfully chosen varnam in raga Nilambari, a raga in which lullabies are sung.
After singing the Adi tala varnam in two tempos, Abhishek took up ‘Sarasiruhasana’, a composition of Puliyur Doreswamy Iyer in raga Nata, suffixing kalpanaswaras. Tyagaraja’s ‘Guruleka’ in raga Gowrimanohari was the next item. The improvisation techniques handed at the end were niraval of the phrase ‘tatva bodhana jesi kapadu tyagarajaptudana’ and kalpanaswaras. In what appeared to be the central piece of his recital, Abhishek took up Swati Tirunal’s ‘Sarasaksha paripalaya’ in raga Pantuvarali with once again presenting niraval of the phrase ‘bhaminee samudayasa mohana padmanabha kamaladharaneevara’ and kalpanaswaras. This was followed by the tani avartanam of the mridangam artiste in Adi tala. However, Abhishek sprang a surprise by taking up a detailed alapana of the raga Kapi and sang Papanasam Sivan’s ‘Enatavam’ with once again presenting niraval and kalpanaswaras. The taniavartanam once again followed.
While B.U. Ganesh Prasad provided the violin support, Anand R. Ananthakrishnan was on the mridangam. On the whole, an unstructured tribute to late Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, the architect of modern concert format.
Trimurthy Sangeetha Mahotsavam
In another concert at the city’s Mayur Vihar Phase II, it was a different scenario altogether. Another Chennai-based vocalist, Sumithra Vasudev, was featured in the Trimurthy Sangeetha Mahotsavam organised by the South Indian Sangam in association with Ganesh Seva Samaj, Mayur Vihar, at the latter’s temple complex. It was a soothing music adhering to classicism throughout and the songs chosen by and large comprised of the trinity (Muthuswami Dikshidar, Tyagaraja and Shyama Sastri).
The vocalist did adequate justice to the title of the festival. The central piece of Sumithra’s recital was Dikshidar’s ‘Dakshinamurte’ in raga Sankarabharanam. A fine alapana bringing out the nuances of the raga to the fore, niraval of a phrase from the pallavi portion itself were the noteworthy features there. Earlier, Sumithra also sang Tyagaraja’s ‘Ni Chittamu nischlamu’ in raga Dhanyasi and ‘Etavuna nerchitivo’ in Yedukula Kambhoji, Dikhsidar’s ‘Balakrishnam bhavayami’ in Gopika vasantam and Shyama Sastri’s ‘Sankari sankuru’ in Saveri to the utter delight of those present.
Delhi R. Sridhar on the violin and K.N. Padmanabhan on the mridangam provided good support to Sumithra in the concert.
