Present-day youngsters are precocious; they learn music faster and easily qualify themselves to perform on stage. Probably that is the reason why we see a lot of young performers on stage rather than in the audience.
Bala Kala Saagaram's Margazhi Festival featured programmes by Ramjhi's protégés (Isai Mazhalai) at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Mini Hall, Mylapore.
Anjana Thirumalai, Sriram Sridhar (violin) and Thirucherai Kaushik (mridangam) are not definitely mazhalais. They are in their late teens; in a way it is good as they will be in a better position to understand the depth of classical music, if not the subtle nuances.
Vocalist Anjana has a right voice to suit classical music. Her open-throated articulation helped her move easily through ‘Chalamela,' Nattakuranji varnam and ‘Sangeetha Gnamamu' in Dhanyasi with swaras.
She chose Mohanam for alapana for the kriti ‘Jagadeeswari.' There was a smooth swara exchange between her and Sriram.
Later, with the main item Simhendramadhyamam, Anjana earned more points, as she made a diligent effort in presenting the raga essay through steady build-up and slide down.
Mature rendition
Vasudevachar's ‘Ninne Nammithinayya' and swaras on ‘Pannkendra Sayana' showed commendable maturity in comprehension and delivery.
Sriram too did not lag behind. He proved his strength in Mohanam and Simhendramadhyamam. Kaushik has nimble fingers and his percussion playing was pretty pleasing and so was his thani without excesses. All the three promising youngsters are honing their skills with popular gurus -- Anjana with Padma Chandilyan, Kaushik with Kalakkad Srinivasan and Sriram with Padma Sankar.
Well, on the flip side, these youngsters should keep a careful eye on the sruti, landing points and swarasthanas, which can attain perfection only with more training, practice and concerts.
Young ADITYA NARAYANAN seems to be a ‘star mazhalai' since he is already well-known in the Isai Mazhalai circles.
His kriti renditions were noteworthy because of his good patantara under the tutelage of Suguna Varadachari but when it comes to raga exposes and swarakalpanas, his imagination went slightly overboard.
‘Parvatha Raja Kumari' in Sriranjani and the appendage of swaras showed signs of this enthusiasm, but one had to wait to see it take full hold of him in the main Sankarabharanam kriti ‘Enduku Peddala.'
In between, he sang ‘Chandram Bhaja Manasa' in Asaveri, ‘Ra Ra Rajeeva Lochana Rama' in Mohanam, ‘Shyama Sundaranga' in Dhanyasi and ‘Raga Sasi Vadana' in Dakka with creditable maturity.
A more judicious approach right from the raga alapana to niraval and swaras on ‘Veda Sastra' would have been much better.
Simple recitation of swaras at length can create awe but may not fall under aesthetics.
Violinist Kaushik Sivaramakrishan (trained by Radha Narayanan and Meera Sivaramakrishnan) on the contrary was more restrained on his part.
Harikumar on the mridangam presented an absolutely composed presentation. Thanks to training with his veteran guru Umayalpuram Sivaraman, he knew his role well, including the decibel limits.
