The percussion wizardry held everyone in thrall. The instrumental blend made for a brilliant evening with the peerless ghatam maestro T.H. Vikku Vinayakram ensemble – the Sapthaaswara. The audience was agog with wonder as the show went on.
Presenting a traditional fare in an innovative mode has become the order of the day but doing it with expertise and excellence is Vikku Vinayakram's forte. The tempo went piling up with one piece after another be it the traditional round or the interactive session.
The seven musicians symbolic of the seven syllabic notes in our musical parlance, vied with each other crafting master strokes that it would have been a challenge to pick up a ‘best' in the group! Mahesh Vinayakram opened the concert with his stupendous vocal rendition of an invocatory verse styled ‘Mahaperiyawa' (Tamil) at the end of which each individual instrumentalist gave us a brief serially and in unison. These were but lightning strokes of the thunderous rhythm that was to be showered upon us. The ‘Siva tandavam' piece in Sindhu Bhairavi to an 8-beat staccato followed with the ‘Mahaperiyawa sharanam' refrain (which had the undertones of extolling the Paramacharya of Kanchi Kamakoti peetham). The percussion reminisced the ‘damaru' (Lord Shiva's drum) rhythm with absolute accuracy. The raga alapana in Poorvi Kalyani (Adi talam Khanda gati) to ‘Omkara Panjara Shuki' (in keeping with the navaratri that's on now) was a stupendous piece with a voice to match. The lyrics blossomed at Mahesh's touch. Selva Ganesh on the kanjira and Ramakrishna on the mridangam complimented the vocalist's superb notes. Vikku Vinayakram and Uma Shankar resonance on the ghatam was breathtaking to say the least.
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The traditional fare over, the group switched to an interactive session with the elite audience rising to the occasion. So it was the base guitar and western beat reproduced on the kanjira, the ‘happy birthday' music replayed on a very Indian instrument, the sound of a train on rails as while contemplating a bridge – the nuances of sound being wonderfully reproduced – by the percussionists was no mean achievement. The multi-faceted Rajaraman was equally versatile with the ghatam as with the ‘ghettu' (a gottu vaadyam of sorts).
His prowess was one of its kind. Not to be understated was the morsing which recreated rain in the auditorium sending ecstatic chill down the spine.
Spelling out jatis in the form of a conversation, was highly entertaining as was the ghatam replay of ‘done' and ‘clap' with the left and right hands alternately by the audience till it reached a crescendo. Reproducing the ghatam in a half -emptied water bottle was like a hat-trick.
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The tani avarthanam by the instrumentalists was the highlight of this festive evening and the great ghatam guru deserved nothing short of a standing ovation as he threw up his ghatam mid-air in rhythmic cycles eliciting cheers from a awestruck audience.
The ‘Docomo' tune on percussion was a fitting accolade to the sponsor Tata Docomo which held the concert at Satya Sai Nigamagamam.