R K Srikantan, Jnarnava Trust

R K Srikantan - M Chandrasekaran - T K Murthy - V Suresh 

jnanArNavA Trust, MA Mini Hall. 

20th Feb 2006 

srI mUlAdAra - srI rAgam - Adi (R) 

candram bhaja - asAvEri - matya tALam 

Ananda naTana prakAsam - kEdAram - cApu (RS) 

srI gurunA pAlitOsmi - pADi - rUpakam 

srI bAlasubramaNyA - bilahari - cApu (RNS) 

taniyAvaradanam 

bAlakrishNam - gOpikA vasantam - Adi 

srI kamalAmbikE - srI rAgam 

The concert was preceeded by the CD release function of dikshitar kritis as in SSP. Dr. N Ramanathan, Dr. Seshasayee, Dr. V V Srivatsa, Sri R K Srikantan and Smt R Vedavalli spoke on the occasion. All of them emphasised on various aspects of the SSP and the supremeness of Sri Muthuswami Dikshitar for his compositions, of Sri Subbarama Dikshitar and Sri Chinnaswami Mudaliar for coming out with the SSP for all the tough times they had gone thro'in the process. 

The efforts of Music Academy in translating the SSP into tamil, the works of Dr. S. Ramanathan, Sri B. Rajam Iyer, Sri T L Venkatarama Iyer, Mudicondan Sri Venkatarama Iyer and Dr. V. Raghavan towards the same, the work of Prof. S K R Rao in translating SSP into Kannada and Sri Udupa who has handwritten the SSP in kannada, and the efforts of Dr. P P Narayanaswami and Smt Vidya Jayaraman for the English Translation were all mentioned and given credits. Sri T M Krishna compered and said this is a venture to preserve what that is given and not to say that all else is wrong. He also said its not a commercial venture. Earlier the evening started with a moving rendition of 'srI nAtAdi guruguhO' by Amritha Murali and two others. The Trust also felicitated Sri Srikantan and Smt Vedavalli. 

The concert started at about 15 minutes to 8 pm. The opening srI rAgam AlApanai and the kriti were superb. The asAvEri kriti was rendered with a lot of bhavam. kEdAram flashed from the first sancAram and there was no ambiguity anywhere in the rendition. It was all rendered very well and was the pADi kriti. bilahari yet again was filled with rAga bhAvam from the word go and it was a very good rendition of the kriti with neraval and svarams at 'A pAla gOpa vidita dIna caraNyA'. The gOpikAvasantam kriti was nice and the srI rAgam mangalam led to curtains for the one-and-half hour concert. Sri Srikantan has been growing young with time when it comes to music. His ideas for manOdarmam and his kriti renditions were very good. Sri Ramakanth who provided vocal support would have done a lot better if he learns to sing only wherever necessary. Sri Chandrasekaran was his regular stuff. His playing was good. Advancing age was very evident in the playing of Sri Murthy. Though the vigour is still there in his fingers, age takes count on memory and hence the kaNakku. This was seen once during the tani. Sri Suresh was very good and the percussion dept was well handled by both of them.