Savita Narasimhan who was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi's Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar recently gave an impressive vocal recital when she performed at Kamani auditorium during the Akademi's seven-day festival. Even in her brief recital, Savita gave a good account of herself and her talents in Carnatic music. Starting her concert with a verse on Lord Kartikeya in the form of a viruttam, Savita presented Muttuswami Dikshitar's “Swaminatha” in raga Nattai. Her central item was Tyagaraja's “Appa ramabhakti” in raga Pantuvarali. In the brief alapana of the raga she brought out its features. In the subsequent neraval and swaraprastaras, her creative talents came to the fore. Savita concluded her concert with a scintillating bhajan in the raga Sindhu Bhairavi. VSK Annadurai and Nellai Balaji, on the violin and mridangam respectively, demonstrated their musical perceptivity.
In the Thyagaraja Music Festival organised by the Sree Shanmukhananda Sangeeta Sabha at the auditorium of Andhra Pradesh Bhavan, another youngster K. Gayathri too presented a very impressive vocal recital. Gayathri started her concert with an Adi tala varnam in raga Kalyani. Tyagaraja's “Dinamani vamsa” in raga Harikamboji was her next item in which she suffixed swaraprastaras that revealed her creative talents in that early stage of her recital. Gayathri took up Shyama Sastri's “Minalochani” in raga Dhanyasi and yet another Tyagaraja composition “Kaligi yunte gada” in raga Kiravani for detailed presentation. She delineated these ragas in stages and in an unhurried manner, bringing out the characteristics of these ragas. Her creative talents flowed during the neraval and subsequent swaraprastaras for both these songs.
Kalyani Shankar on the violin, Manoj Siva on the mridangam and K.V. Gopalakrishnan on the kanjira provided provided appropriate accompaniment. While Kalyani's sketch of raga Dhanyasi was delightful, the percussionist's tani avartanam in Adi tala was riveting.
Pantula Rama's vocal recital in this festival contained some fine presentations of Tyagaraja compositions. Rama's handling of Tyagaraja's “Palintuvo palimpavo” in raga Kantamani (a vivadi raga, the 61st raga in the scheme of 72 melakarta ragas) in a detailed manner was scholarly. While the alapana of the raga was scintillating, her creative talents flowed during the neraval of the phrase from the charanam of the composition and in the swaraprastaras that came later. Such a raga is rarely taken up in concerts and Rama did an excellent job of handling the composition as well as the improvisation techniques. The central item of her recital was Tyagaraja's “Nadopasana” in raga Begada. After the tani avartanam (percussion interlude) she presented a few Tamil compositions, which revealed her need to improve her Tamil diction.
Sisters Ranjani and Gayatri who also gave a vocal duet in the same festival handled excellently Patanam Subramanya Iyer's “Mariveredikkevaru” in raga Latangi, Tyagaraja's “Entani ne” in Mukhari and Papanasam Sivan's “Kaana kankodi vendum” in Kamboji, to the delight of the music lovers. Other highlights of this recital were the scintillating ragamallika viruttams that the sisters presented in Bilahari, Hamsanandi and Kanada ragas before presenting Ambujam Krishna's “Enna solli” in raga Kanada and an Abang in the raga Lalit.
B. Raghavendra Rao on the violin, Manjo Siva on the mridangam and K.V. Gopalakrishnan on the kanjira provided excellent support in the concerts of Pantula Rama and Ranjani-Gayatri.
