Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha organised a Carnatic vocal concert by Vasudha Ravi at the Amaltas Hall of the India Habitat Centre recently. Endowed with a good voice, the Chennai-based vocalist enthralled the music lovers with her musical talents during her concert of about two hours. Intelligent structuring of the concert, excellent diction of lyrics, whether it was Sanskrit, Telugu or Tamil, interweaving of manodharma (creative music) with the kalpita music (music as learnt) in an appropriate proportion, a calm demeanour during the performance and establishing a quick rapport with her Delhi-based accompanists were all noteworthy features in her concert.
Vasudha started her concert with an Adi tala varnam in the raga Todi in two speeds. The opening piece was itself indicative of her depth in this art form. The composition after composition that she presented in a delightful manner till final piece which was a Thillana in the raga Khamas confirmed the depth.
This was Vasudha’s first ever concert in the Capital and Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha needs to be complimented, at the outset, for introducing such an artiste to the Delhi audience.
The invocation song on Lord Ganesha was “Ekadantam Bhajeham” a composition of Muthuswami Dikshitar in the raga Bilahari. The fast paced swaraprastharas towards the end that flowed with rich creativity kept Vasudha’s proceedings very lively. While singing Tyagaraja’s “Entamuddo” in the raga Bindumalini, Vasudha brought to fore the emotional contents of the lyrics.
Vasudha took up another Tyagaraja song “Sattaleni Dinamu’ in the raga Naganandini (the 30th Melakarta raga) and another Dikshitar’s composition “Ramanatham Bhajeham” in the raga Pantuvarali for detailed renditions. At a time when the former composition is rarely sung in concerts, Vasudha went further ahead by prefixing a raga alpana that was scintillating and suffixing detailed and creative swara patterns to the composition. For the Dikshitar’s song “the add-on delight” was presentation of neraval of the phrase, “Kumara guru guha viditam kapi brndadi sannutam” from the Anupallavi portion of the composition.
In between, Vasudha sang Papanasam Sivan’s composition “Nambi kettavar” in the raga Hindolam to the utter delight of the rasikas. The miscellaneous session of Vasuda too was enjoyable. This included captivating verses from Aurnagirinadar’s Kandar Anubhuti in the form of ragamalika vritams in Kapi and Behag before singing “Muruganin marupeyar”.
Delhi-based youngster G. Raghavendra Prasath who provided the violin support did rise to the occasion and closely followed the vocalist. Kumbakonam N. Padmanabhan, also from the city, provided a riveting and understanding percussion support on his mridangam. Besides, his tani avartanam (percussion solo) in Rupakam tala was enjoyable.
Vasudha Ravi is the disciple of Dr. Manjula Sriram and is an ‘A’ graded artiste of All-India Radio. She has also been under the guidance of Vidwan late A. Sundaresan and has been performing in India and abroad. Surely, the vocalist’s maiden concert in the Capital will linger long in the memories of music lovers.
