Sanjay, Mangalam Ganapathy Trust

Sanjay - Varadarajan - Arun prakash

Mangalam Ganapathy Trust at PS School Auditorium, Mylapore.

Sanjay gave a fitting tribute to all many composers during his concert on sunday evening. his vAtApi gaNapatim with swarams was good. his elaboration of chandrajyoti was real class. the kriti was "chandra jyoti prakAsa vadana"(details appreciated) with swarams at the pallavi line. yentha ninne was well sung with a lot of beautiful short swarams. His sAvEri was brilliant and a fitting tribute to Shyama sAstri with sankari samkurU. the main piece of the evening was "thiruvadi caraNam". the 20 minute alapanai was just good. the neraval and swarams also worth mentioning. The tukkada section had "kandena" by purandara dasar and "karpagame" by sivan amongst other pieces. Varadarajan had played well through the concert given good accompaniment and so was arun prakash. his tani also good.

Priya Sisters, Sruthilaya Kendra & Narada Gana Sabha

Narada Gana Sabha in association with Sruthi Laya Kendra.

Guru Surajananda Jayanthi

Priya Sisters - MA Krishnaswamy - Neyveli Skanda Subramanian - SV Ramani

The evening started with a long introduction. The Sisters started with the sArangA varNam 'intha mOdi' followed by 'vara vallabha ramaNam' in hamsadhwani ending in brisk swarams. Sivan's chakravAkkam kriti 'EshanE indha Ezhaikkiranga' was the next piece. varALi elaboration by haripriya was good. the renditions of tyagaraja's 'ETi janmamidi hA' was beautiful with swarams at 'sAtilEni mAra'. shanmukhapriya started with a malayamArutam Alapanai which haripriya aptly finished and the tyagaraja kriti 'manasA Etulo' was well rendered with kalpanai swarams at 'kalilO rAjasa'. Dikshitar's 'nAgagAndhAri rAganutE' was followed by a neat kIravANi Alapanai by haripriya. the periyasami thooran kriti 'puNNiyam oru kOdi' was followed by neraval and elaborate swarams at 'annai kAmAkshi pOlE anbE vaDivAi vandAr' followed by the tani. the concert ended with 'muruganin maru peyar' in bEhAg and 'pavamAna'.

haripriya's alapanais and swarams were all as usual quite beautiful while shanmukapriya was quite reaching there. MA krishnaswamy sounded rather gimmicky and not that impressive which he is in most occasions. The tani was very good. Skanda Subramanian played quite well beyond problems with his mrUdangam which kept going off sruthi while SV Ramani did a very decent job. It was a nice concert with rather an abrupt ending probably due to pressing from organisers.

Ravikiran, Musiri Chambers

Sri. N. Ravikiran - vocal
Sri. V. V. Ravi - violin
Sri. K. V. Prasad - mRudangam
Sri. T. V. Vasan - ghaTam

sarasuDa ninnE - sAvEri varNam
Agama rAjagOpAla - kEdAram - OVK (s)
rAvE himagirikumAri - tOdi - SS
EmanaticcEdavO - sahAnA - T (a)
ETi janmamidi hA - varALi - T
dwaitamu sukhamA - rItigauLa - T (a,s)
br_hannAyakI - AndAli - MD
RTP - shanmukapriyA - "saravaNabavanE shanmukanE kAtharuLvAi" - Adi (2 kaLai)
tani
Adi nIpai - yamunakalyANi - dharmapuram subbarAyar jAvaLi
ninnu jUchI - punnAgavarALi - kshEtragya padam
tillAna - sindhubhairavi - own comp
nI nAma rUpamulakU - saurAshtram

Almost all the piece had small sketches of the rAgam. Sri. Ravikiran rendered the AndAli kriti in the dhanammal bAni as a janya of kharaharapriyA while the more known version is a janyam of harikAmbhOji. sahAna was beautiful and rItigauLa was well elaborated. shanmukapriyA was just brilliant. The pallavi sounded like an improptu one. All the swarams were brisk and every piece was just prooving the vidwat of Sri. Ravikiran. The rAgA essays of both the vocalist and the violinst were quite on par. Accompanists were all good. the tani Avartanam was very well co-ordinated between both of them and a memorable one. It was a marvellous concert.