Many good concerts faced sparse audience this Season and Vasudha Keshav’s was one of them. She holds the essential credentials of being a student of P.S. Narayananswami and has a sonorous voice. She treats her songs well, without deviating much from the standards of classical idiom.
Vasudha’s concert displayed two heavy weights - Khambodi and Bhairavi. Her treatises for both were almost in equal proportions. Her attention towards Khambodi was lesser than it was for Bhairavi. However, Vasudha handled the beginning, development and conclusion of her concert with conscientious command. In Khambodi, she selected ‘Maa Janaki’ (Tyagaraja) and devised niraval at ‘Raja Raja Vara’ with creative sense and added swarakalpana. Here too, she was vibrant and rendered variations that landed on panchamam and dhaivatam alternatively and rounded off professionally.
She took up Bhairavi immediately and proved her skills in selecting the right phrases to project the stately raga. ‘Raksha Bettare’ (Tyagaraja) was the choice and the swara linkages were set on the pallavi itself. Did Vasudha’s slightly impersonal articulation fail to reach many? Perhaps.
The concert had Vasantha varnam and ‘Jootha Murare’ in Arabhi (Tyagaraja) as opening items and ‘Srichakra Raja’ ragamalika as the closing composition.
Violin accompanist M.S.G. Suresh has to improve his skills. His replies to Vasudha’s posers were not very confident. Dr. Ramsriram (there was one more person wielding the instrument) on the mridangam and H.S. Sivaramakrishnan on the ghatam supported Vasudha. During the concert, they also enjoyed a ten minute display of their skills in the tani avatanam.
When marriage halls are converted into performing places, the first casualty is the acoustics. Notwithstanding the devices provided, the echo was perceptible.
