The annual Tamil music festival conducted by Tamil Isai Sangam began with a nagaswaram concert by Seshampatti Sivalingam at Raja Muthiah Mandram on Wednesday.
Sivalingam, who began the concert with ‘Saravana Bhava Enum’ in Shanmugapriya, played a number of kritis in quick succession due to paucity of time. Throughout the concert, contours of ragas were played clearly and this won the appreciation of rasikas.
On Thursday, students of Rajalakshmi Senthilkumar’s Sri Balavinayaka Natyalaya presented a dance drama, ‘Tiruchitramblam’ on stage which was decorated like ‘Ponnambalam.’ The dance drama had three themes -- Meenakshi Kalyanam, Markandeya Puranam and Kannappa Nainar Charithram.
The students danced to the tunes of Rajalakshmi Senthilkumar, who performed the nattuvangam with A. S. Divya singing the lyrics, Pakkala Jayaprakash on the violin, Sivasubramaniam on mrudangam and Sudhakar Mahalingam on flute. The performance of dancers was true to their style in foot work, facial expression and postures.
The dancers dressed in bright costumes added colour to the event.
The wonderful percussion support contributed to the success of Tiruchitrambalam.
In the second programme of the day, vocalist T. K. S. Kalaivanan began with Avvaiyar’s ‘Paalum Theli Thenum Paagum Paruppum.’ In his introductory speech, Kalaivanan said that his concert would have all the three.
He went on to sing ‘Munnavane en munne vantharul’ and then ‘Maname unakkitamayoru vartai’ in a rare raga, Vandanadharini, which was well received by the audience.
His neravals were taken up by violinist D. Sachidanandam, who presented enjoyable variations of his own. K Thiyagarajan on the mrudangam attempted some rustic beats which were gamely taken forward by ghatam player Solaimalai and K. S. Kandavel on the morsing.
S. Padmanabhan
