T M Krishna, Kalpadruma Arts Festival

T M Krishna - R K Shriram Kumar - Mannargudi Eswaran - T V Vasan

Kalpadruma Arts Festival. Sivagami Pettachi Auditorium
11th August 2007. 6:30pm

mangaLa slOkam from abhignyAna sAkuntalam - mAyAmALavagauLa, kEdAram
Ananda naTana prakAsham - kEdAram - misra cApu - MD (NS)
srI kALahastIsha - husEni - kaNDa cApu - MD (S)
aruNAcala nAtam - sArangA - rUpakam - MD (R)
cintayamAkanda - bhairavi - rUpakam - MD (RS)
RTP - sankarAbaraNam - kaNDa jhampai kaNDa naDai (4 akshara eDuppu - 6 akshara aridi)
panchAnanA pancabUtAkAra vibhO pAhimAm shambO
rAgamAlikA svarams in Anandabhairavi, sAmA, kalyANi
tani Avarththanam
jambUpatE - yamunA - rUpakam - MD
mangaLAni dishatu nA sadA - suruTTi - rupakam

The concert was on the theme, 'the five elements' or the 'pancha bhUta'. The artist hence chose to present the five pancha bhUta kshEtra kritis of Dikshitar at the concert.

The concert began with the mangaLam slOkam, appropriate to the theme of the concert, rendered in mAyAmALavagauLa and kEdAram. The kEdAram kriti was rendered nicely with a elaborate round of neraval and svarams at 'saNgItavAdya vinOdatANDavajAta bahutara bhEdacOdyam'. The fiddle vidwan was following like a shade and gave amazing replies.

The husEni kriti was sung in a very moving fashion and a elaborate round of svarams were sung at the pallavi line. The svara prastaram was very inspiring. The sArangA AlApanai was done in a fashion fitting the dIkshitar kriti, incorporating special prayOgam used by dIkshitar with the kriti to follow. The violinst was good in playing for the song. The percussion dept also made the kriti more enjoyable.

While i was expecting a bhairavi main, i was rather surprised to hear an AlApanai which was barely 5 minutes. The shorter 4 min reply from violinist, made one wonder what was in store. The kriti was rendered in a rather slow tempo, compared to the popular version in vogue. The round of svarams at 'maNgaLakara mandahAsa vadanam' was short and sweet.

Then came the amazing AlApanai of shankarAbaraNam. It was really fantastic AlApanai. It had quite a few SSI-benchmarked-phrases incorporated into it. The violinst also made a nice portrayal of the rAgam. The tAnam was amazing also with both the vocalist and violinst making some good exchanges. The pallavi was rendered in a grand manner and was aptly set in accordance to the theme of the day. It was rendered quite elaborately with anulOma pratilOma and the rAgamAlika svarams. The Mridangam and Ghatam vidwans were visibly quite happy to be playing for such a pallavi, in a not so popular tALam. The tani they shared for about 15 minutes was definetely very different to hear and many students of percussion must have benefitted from the patterns that were played. They played a korappu to the start of the pallavi line and also a 2 Avarthana mOhra at the end of the tani.

The yamunA piece was rendered in a amazing manner with all the grandeur and majesty associated with the piece. The concert ended with a newly composed mangaLam, that was composed for the occasion by the violinist of the day.

A very fullfilling concert to remember for sometime. I only hope they release the audio and video of the concert, in CDs or something. It would be a collector's item to store.