Sattur Sisters, Music Club IIT Madras

Noam Chomsky once remarked that Media projects only things it thinks public should know. This seems true in the field of music, too! The media seems to project only musicians who network with the press reviewers or with 'people who matter'. The introvert musicians who have no promoters or patrons seem condemned to obscurity! This was the feeling that this listener got while attending the concert of Sattur Sisters' concert on 11th Oct at Music Club IIT Madras.

The evening bloomed with a short sketch of kalyANi by Smt. Bhuvana and the varNam vanajAkshI in Adi tALam with kalpanai svarams. The invocatory kriti was N S Ramachandran's srI mahAgaNapatE in Abogi. Smt. Bhuvana's elaboration of kEdAragauLa started off on a bright note; she worked through the sancharas effectively and creatively, and made a telling impact. shyamA sAstri's 'parAkEla nannu' was beautifully rendered with sparkling cittai swarams. This was followed by tyAgarAja's 'bAgAyanayya' in chandrajyothi and dIkshitar's 'rAmacandram bhAvayAmi' in vasanta with swarams at 'kAgustam dImantam'. gopAlakr.SNa bhArati's 'ennEramum undan' in dEvagAndhari was beautifully sung with multiple caraNams. vAcaspati was very well elaborated by Smt. Lalitha with effortless ease. tyAgarAja's 'kaNTa jUDumi' was neatly presented with neraval at 'alanAdu saumitrI pAda sEvA' and svarams at both 'alanAdu' and 'pAda sEvA'.

The main piece of the evening was a Ragam Tanam Pallavi in kIravANi in kaNDa tripuTa (2 kaLai) 3/4 eDuppu, the sAhityam being "muruganE kumaranE shanmuganE vaLLi deivAnai maNALanE". Smt. Bhuvana's elaborations of madhyamastAyI and Smt. Lalitha's tArastAyI and mandarastAyI elaborations of the rAgam were good. The tAnam was neatly rendered. The pallavi was also good with the usual tisram, durita kAlam and vilamba kAlam ending with aesthetic swarams and rAgamalika in bindumAlini, ranjani, karnAtaka suddha sAvEri and bEhAg. This was followed by the tanyAvardhanam. Quite different from the usual, the mridangist and ghatam artist played five and four for the nine beat tALam instead of the four-and-half pattern. The concert ended with nIlA rAmamUrthi's AyiramAyiram in chArukEsi in madyamasruthi and pavamAna.

Smt. Neela Jayakumar on the violin played in true MC style and was always trying to reach to the main artist. Her svara prasthArams for bindumAlini and karnAtaka suddhasAvEri, and her kEdAragauLa Alapanai were reminders of popular kritis in the respective rAgams. Sri. V R Jayakumar on the mrUdangam gave sarva laghu support to the concert and so did Sri. H Sivaramakrishnan on Ghatam though, at times, they were a trifle obtrusive.

Over all the concert was a good example of how some of the less-celibrated musicians have so much of good music in them. All the vintage stuff in the concert where quite very well brought out.