Unique Navavaranam music festival

The International Foundation for Carnatic Music will conduct the first-ever Navavarana malika festival on October 1 and 2, at Raga Sudha Hall, Mylapore. The festival which coincides with Navaratri, will focus on the contrasting styles in melody, rhythm and structure of these masterpieces composed by Muttuswami Dikshitar (Kamalamba Navavaranams) and Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi (Kamakshi Navavaranams). The navavaranam set of compositions include the Ganesha stuti, Dhyana kriti, the nine avarana kritis and the phala stuti/Mangala kriti and are rich in the esoteric details of tantric and mantric worship of Devi. They cover a range of core-Carnatic and rare ragas such as Ghanta, Ahiri, Punnagavarali, Balahamsa, Deshakshi and complex talas such as Sankeerna Mathya, Khanda Dhruva and Khanda Triputa.

This festival features top-notch artistes such as Trichur Ramachandran, Neyveli Santhanagopalan, Jayalakshmi Santhanam, Suguna Varadachari, Gayathri Venkataraghavan, R. Suryaprakash as well as talents from the next generation such as Nisha Rajagopal, Vidya Kalyanaraman, K. Gayathri, Sriranjani Santhanagopalan, Anahita-Apoorva and Pradeep Kumar. Each artiste will render one krti each from the two composers’ works in their respective order. The evenings will be augmented by educative presentations on Dikshitar’s navavaranams by vidushi R. Vedavalli while Needamangalam Alamelu and Subburaman will expound upon the salient features of Venkata Kavi’s navavaranams.