with V.V.S.Murari on the violin and Delhi Sairam on the mrdangam. 2 3/4 hours.

song list:
svAmi nI manamirangi (pv)-shrIranjani-Papanasham Shivan-sk
gAnamUrtE-gAnamUrti-Tyagaraja-S
rAmA nI vEgAni-nrAyaNi-Tyagaraja-A, S
eppaDi manam tuNindadO-husEni-Arunachalakavi
giripriyam gangAdharam-kadanakutUhala-Muttiah Bhagavatar
RTP kalyANi-tAnam in kalyANi, shuddhadhanyAsi, mOhana and madhyamAvati-
pallavi: lalitE vinutE mAm pAhi guNavati bhagavati jagadjanani-Adi tALA
pancAshat pITha rUpiNI-karnATakadEvagAndhAri-Dikshitar
viruttam - Alamarattin ilaiyilE in sumanEsharanjani followed by
parthasArathi tiruvallikkENi-Rukmini Ramani
hariguNa gAvata-dIpAli-Meera
tillAnA-pUrNacandrikA-Poochi Iyengar
shrI rAmacandranukku-suraTi-Arunachalakavi

Lakshman-ji, as always thank you for your meticulous and detailed song list.

A few observations on the concert.

There was an interesting twist in the RTP tAnam, where instead of the traditional grahabedhams in kalyani (which would yield todi, Sankarabharanam, natabhairavi etc), Gurucharan decided to go the "varjyam" route and produced three different audava/pentatonic ragams: Suddha Dhanyansi, Mohanam and Madhyamavati. Gurucharan handled this segment extremely well. He turned the electronic tanpura all the way down when he made the tonic shifts, which I found a bit puzzling.

NarAyaNi was just lovely and even more so since it is rarely heard these days. I was also very pleased that he sang ganamurti, huseni and sumanesaranjani. Certainly not a vanilla list, as you can see.

I feel that Gurucharan has already come 90% of the way. He has a wonderful voice, comes from excellent tutelage, has a remarkable repertoire and is technically proficient is all aspects of the vocal art. His sAdhakam shows in how he handles complex brighas nonchalantly. However, he runs the risk of plateau-ing here (in a very competitive market segment) unless he can distinguish himself meaningfully on the difficult path to greatness. I have no doubts that he will do this eventually, but the last leg of this power-law curve can be the most difficult to climb. I wish him the very best in achieving this.

VVS Murari's playing was excellent. His returns were to the point, his raga delineations were crisp and succinct. I have never seen him not deliver in any concert, no matter who the vocalist is. The VVS bowing technique is very interesting with their unique angle of incidence of the string, but perhaps that is the topic of another thread.

Delhi Sairam's performance was satisfactory, but a bit loud and rapaciously aggressive in the style of his guru. I am fine with interesting deviations from sarvalaghu that is characteristic of the Bhaktavatsalam school, but the unbridled aggression leads to a bit of "thesal" which hurts the overall quality of the sound. If you factor in the large reverberation time of the kuchi mridangam tuned for a ringing "dheem", the clarity of the sollus is further lost. I usually like Sairam's playing very much, but somehow did not warm up to him yesterday.

Overall, it was a satisfactory concert. All the ingredients were there, very impressive selection of kritis as you can see from the song list, but somehow the overall effect was unremarkable.

Lakshman,
Yes, thanks for the detailed song list. One little correction?? rAmA, nIvEgAni (but for you), not nI vEgAni (speedily).

Mahavishnu,
I was just going to request a review from you,and here it is, as thorough and fine as it gets! Loved Gurucharan's song list, especially sri rAmachandranukku jaya mangaLam as the finale.
The intricacies of every aspect of the concert has been described in your own erudite way, as usual! It helps us lay rasikAs in 'looking behind the scenes' as it were. Thanks!
You are right about Gurucharan's every asset and--I'm waiting like you for that last leg of ascent on his part to reach the top. Hope he soon achieves that point (not difficult for him) when he becomes an artiste with a distinct stamp all his own, in a competitive concert arena.

TOP in what? Concert fee? Technically he is right there already at his young age.

kssr,
The fee wasn't on my mind when I said it. It is that stamp of individuality, that je ne sais quoi quality which is all one's own. Technically speaking, in gnAnam and in his vazhi, he's already there, right at the top