B Ananthakrishnan - Violin
Thanjavur Praveen Kumar - Mridangam
Nerkunam Shankar - Khanjira
inta mODi - sAranga - Adi (sketch)
a song in jOnpuri (?), rUpaka
nI pada pankaja - bEgaDa - Adi - T (R, S @ pallavi)
mAyamma - Ahiri - Adi - SS
sharavaNa bhava (?) - pashupati priya - Adi - Muttaiah Bhagavathar (?)
? - ShaNmukhapriya - khaNDacApu - ? (R, NS)
durusuga - sAVEri - Adi - SS (R, NS @ nArAyaNi)
Asai mugam (?) - jOnpuri (?) - Adi - ?
alarshara paritApam - suraTi - cApu - ST
tiruppugazh in pUrvikalyANi
pavamAna sutuDu - saurAShTra - Adi - T
What a concert it was! It is good that flautists like Sruthi Sagar, KL Kaushik and Shashank learn vocal music and interpret it on flute independently. After Mali, I haven't seen any flute technique which captures vocal music perfectly on the instrument the way many vINa bANis, some nAdaswaram bANis and one or two violin bANis do.
Was good to hear another sAranga on the flute after Jayanth's concert at nAdasurabhi. Do flautists have a special liking for this rAga?
The bEgaDa was absolutely beautiful. Except for one very-long ni somewhere in the caraNam, the kriti interpretation was so very singable.
The mAyamma somehow didn't have that kind of smoothness. A few more jArus here and there would have added so much more fluidity.
The filler came just at the right time. I was thinking, let's maybe have a kuntaLavarALi now? Shankar joined at the pallavi itself, nicely giving more energy. Probably a better-known kriti would have allowed the violinist up it a little more.
The ShaNmukhapriya, though, was somewhat of a bore. The neraval, especially, saw me mostly being kept attentive by Praveen Kumar's superb accompaniment. The swarams here had a few flute-special tALa vyavahAram.
Thankfully, the ShaNmukhapriya was not the main for the day.
The sAvEri rAgam and krti were gripping. It was something like that Harimau describes Trivandrum Venkataraman's music as, here: http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php ... nkataraman However, the kIzhkAla neraval was again a little meh. I personally like neravals anchored to the krti line. They may get a little repititive, but don't go "loose". The kIzhkAla swarams too had some AlApanai-like part with some swara-pattern briga thingies, which Ananthakrishnan followed up nicely. I guess that's something many people really like.
Ananthakrishnan kept his AlApanai responses somewhat brief, and traditional. I thought that was a very appropriate response to Sruthi Sagar's bEgaDa and sAvEri, and took the concert forward without hijacking Sruthi Sagar's thoughts.
I really liked how Sruthi Sagar didn't overdo the flautist vyavahAram during swarams: bEgaDa was entirely sarvalaghu, but ShaNmukhapriya and sAvEri swarams struck the delicate balance perfectly.
I felt the tani, especially the beginning (with some shruti issue on the mridangam) did not match up to the expectation set up by the accompaniment. But it became much more engaging later. The final kOrvai was somewhat longer and nice.
The alarshara paritApam was to be heard to be believed. Wow. That was as ARRESTING, CONSUMING even, and as fulfiling as a koNTE gADu. That flat ni (flautists have it easy!) in the pallavi sangati. That ("n")pn(p)m. ... And that prodigal gamaka for ni, kampita all the way to sa, in the pallavi.
A very fulfilling concert. Everyone played wonderfully.
I'm generally the opposite - which is what makes it all the more surprising that I prefer listening to him playing the flute over most of the current generation instrumentalists (and vocalists for that matter). 
