Ramana Balachandran weaves together new ideas

Ramana, who performed recently at Delhi’s Sunder Nursery, shares how he changes the format of his presentation everytime

Ramana Balachandran recital carnatic veena at Crossroads in Chennai. Photo: K.V. Srinivasan/The Hindu | Photo Credit: K_V_SRINIVASAN

The Kiran Nadar Museum of Arts recently held a festival in Delhi’s Sunder Nursery, a gorgeous heritage park adjacent to Humayun’s tomb, as a preview to its Museum of Performing Arts, slated to open in 2026. This is the third such event in Delhi; the two-day event featured four young popular artistes, and the classical fusion band, Anirudh Varma Collective.

Veena player Ramana Balachandran opened with Tyagaraja’s composition in raga Abhogi, ‘Nannu brova’. Ramana singing the lines as he usually does swiftly established himself as a skilled musician, with a smooth racy rendition, picked up expertly by Sumesh Narayanan on the mridangam and Chandrasekara Sharma on the ghatam. The audience was hooked. He then moved to the main piece in raga Desh. Talking about his approach during a post-concert chat, he shared how he changes the format of his presentation everytime. “Sometimes I start with an alapana or go straight into a composition, sometimes I play only the tanam and then the composition.”

The ragam tanam pallavi in Desh was performed in the Hindustani style with few overtly Carnatic embellishments.

“For concerts in the North, I generally try to choose ragas that are more accessible to the audience. I chose Desh as my main piece for this reason — the framework will be Carnatic but I do not distort its nature by embellishing it with too many oscillations,” he said.

Ramana Balachandran performing at New Delhi’s Sunder Nursery. | Photo Credit: RAHUL NAAG

Focussing on the lyrical content of the raga, Ramana showcased harmony with his play on the four strings, creating a soothing soundscape, familiar yet unfamiliar, on the veena. The tanam was innovative — it paused between strokes, changing the weight of the strokes and the flow of the music. The composition was in 16 beats, reminiscent of a traditional Hindustani Teen taal division of bols.

Ramana likes to explore ragas to discover their not-so-known facets. “If I come up with even two or three interesting phrases in an alapana, I am delighted,” said Ramana, who has developed a technique of his own.

Interestingly, Ramana’s initial teacher Nagalakshmi’s granduncle vidwan Sambasiva Iyer was the first to be awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi award for the veena in 1952. Ramana concluded with a Sindhu Bhairavi composition, and a chant that he sang and played.

In the 90-minute presentation, the five minutes of tani avartanam between Sumesh and Chandrasekara focused on the interactive percussive element. The entire recital was taut, carefully structured and creatively presented..

Interestingly, Ramana’s veena from Thanjavur was acquired from a friend — he liked its tone and asked his friend for it. An addition is a small bridge to rest his right fingers on. There is an unusual incline towards the end and the frets are longer. The pegs are guitar pegs for ease of movement. Ramana uses a contact mic made in Germany, especially for his veena. Even to extract its optimum sound needs experimentation, for each auditorium is different, he shared.

The pick-up in Ramana’s mic is fully acoustic, not like a magnetic pick-up that only picks up the sound from the strings. The experimentation continues, and Ramana will soon be playing on a new veena. “It’s the result of two years of tireless work by my father,” he said.