Ramani Narayanan, Semmangudi Golden Jubilee Trust

Semmangudi Srinivasier Golden Jubilee Trust started its series of programmes at Raga sudha hall today, 26th July. Vidushi, Smt. Ranganayaki Rajagopalan who presided over the Inaguration function was honoured. Sri. Duraiswamy IAS in his address stressed the difference between sArIram and ~nyAnam and had given a beautiful anecdotes. Sangeetha kalanidhi Smt. R. Vedavalli also spoke in the occasion and felicitated Smt. Ranganayaki who gave a short and crisp but impactful acceptance. Initially Sri. V. Subramanian welcomed and Sri. P. S. Narayanaswamy proposed the vote of thanks.

Following this was a vINai concert by Smt Ramani, with Sri. Madirimangalam Swaminathan on mridangam and Sri. T. V. Vasan on the ghatam. The concert started with 'sarasIruhAsanapriyE' in nATTai with swarams at 'sarasvatI'. Then tyagaraja's 'telisi rAma' in purNachandrikA was nicely rendered. kAmavardhini was elaborated and the kriti 'appa rAma bhakti' aesthetically rendered ended with swarams and 'sarasa sAma dhAna' was to follow. The elaboration of danyAsi was very soothing and the vINai kuppaiyer kriti 'nA morAlakinchi' was beautiful with the vijayashrI kriti 'vara nArada' next in line. The main piece was 'evari mATa' with kambhOji elaborated nicely and a brilliant tAnam, neraval and swarams at the caraNam line 'bakta parAdhinudanuchu'. the tani Avarthanam was nicely co-ordinated. The narayana tIrthar tarangam 'rE rE mAnasa' in dvijAvanthi was next. The concert ended with jAvaLi in pUrvikalyANi and 'kaliyuga varadan' in brindAvana sAranga. From the first piece, the kAraikudi bAni was very evident in the style of playing the vINai. The sangatis were all beautiful and the swarams also spoke of the bAni.

Mohan Santanam, Triplicane Rasika Samaj

Mohan Santanam - M A Sundareswaran - R Ramesh

The evening started with a varNam in chArukEsi by LGJ, followed by sObillu in jagan mOhini with swarams at 'sapthaswara'. The Svarajati kAmAkshI in bhairavi was very well rendered with neraval at 'shyama krishna'. The first ragam elaborated was gAngEyabhUshani and the tyagaraja kriti EvvarR rAmayyA was beautifully presented. The HMB kriti vAnchthOnu in karnaranjani was the next piece with brisk swarams at the end. The main piece of the concert was MD's dakShiNAmUrtE in shankarAbaraNam. The Alapanai was nice and did the kriti was well rendered. The improvisations in all the kritis were good. Shri. M A Sundareswaran was just doing a great job with the violin and all his essays were beautiful. Shri. Ramesh gave wonderful accompaniment and his tani was brillianto. The concert ended with a brindAvana sAranga tillanA.

bharath

Trivandrum Venkatraman, Nadopasana

Sri. Trivandrum Venkatraman on vINai gave a lovely concert for nAdOpAsanA at PS School's Dakshinamurty Auditorium on 19th July 2004 at 6:30 pm.

The kAmbOji varNam 'sarasija nAbha ninnu' of Tanjore Quartette was the starter which was followed by a small AlApanai of mAyAmALavagauLa and svAti tirunAL's 'dEva dEva kalayAmitE' with neraval and swarams at jAtarUpa. A Vintage Arabhi AlApanai was the next and the svAti tirunAL kriti 'narasimha mAmava' was beautifully rendered. The first elaborate piece of the evening was tyagarAjA's 'nidhi cAla sukhamA' with AlApanai, neraval and swarams which was enlightening. dEvagAndhAri was taken up for AlApanai next to be followed by the svAti tirunAL kriti 'rAma rAma pAhi'. 'gAnamUrthE' was next. Sri.Venkataraman to many's surprise, then started kAmbhOji AlApanai and elaborated the ragam showing all its shades to be followed by an ultra short tAnam. 'O rangasAyI' was followed by neraval and swarams. the tani Avartanam was excellent. Sri. GuruvAyur Durai on mridangam was just in his greatest moods and the morsing vidhwan Sri. Srirangam Kannan gave good replies. the bEhAg kriti of svAti tirunAL 'sAramaina' was preluded with a rAgamAlika AlApanai involving danyAsi, bEgaDa along with bEhAg. sindhubhairavi AlApanai and svAti tirunAL's 'visvesvara darisan' was the concluding kriti with pavamAna at the end. A truly satisfying concert by the veteran.