Bangalore-based Carnatic vocalist Uma B. Money performed this past week at New Delhi’s India International Centre. In a delightful recital of about an hour and a half, Uma presented to Delhi music lovers compositions that are not frequently heard in concerts here. Though Uma’s voice showed signs of being affected a bit, perhaps by Delhi’s climatic conditions, she could comfortably reach the notes at both higher and lower octaves.
Uma, endowed with a weighty voice, began her concert with the popular Ata tala varnam “Viriboni” in raga Bhairavi in two tempos. The neat and delightful presentation of the varnam indicated that the evening would be enjoyable. And by the time her concert was over, it gave the audience more than one reason to feel happy.
The invocation song to Ganesha was Muttuswami Dikshitar’s “Siddhivinayakam” in raga Shanmukhapriya. The song was preceded by a somewhat detailed raga alapana (which one felt was not required at that juncture) and suffixed by kalpana swaras. The raga alapana as well as the kalpanaswaras brought to the fore Uma’s talents in the sphere of manodharma (creative) music.
Uma’s next item was Mysore Sadashiva Rao’s composition, “Neekeppudu daya”, in raga Abhogi (a composition not heard frequently). She sang the song very well and brought out the emotive contents of the lyrics. Uma then took up Harikesanallur Muthaiah Bagavatar’s composition “Jalandhara” in Valachi for detailed presentation. It was a scintillating delineation of the raga. The subsequent singing of the fast-paced song “Shankari Sadanandalahari”, a composition of Jayachamaraja Wodeyyar in raga Malavi, added liveliness to her recital.
Keeping in view the short time at her disposal, Uma moved to the central item of her recital, which was Tyagaraja’s “Swararagasudha” in raga Shankarabharanam. Uma’s handling of this composition, her singing of a phrase from the charanam as neraval and the subsequent kalpana swars were not only mature but also brought out her musical depths.
In the concluding portion, Uma included “Govardana giridhara” (Narayana Tirtha’s composition in raga Darbari Kanada) and “Jagadodharana” (Purandara Dasa’s composition in raga Kapi).
Delhi R. Sridhar on the violin and Kumbakonam N. Padmanabhan on the mridangam provided good support to Uma in this concert. While Sridhar’s delineation of ragas Shanmukhapriya (a commensurately lengthy one) and Shankarabharanam was delightful, Padmanabhan’s appropriate support and tani avartanam (percussion solo) in Adi tala were enjoyable.
Uma has trained under renowned gurus like late R.K. Srikantan, Neyveli R. Santhanagopalan and late Seethalakshmi Venkatesan.
