Jayanthi Kumaresh, Yours Truly Margazhi and the Music Academy, Dec 25, 2020

Review the latest concerts you have listened to.
Post Reply
tmmurali
Posts: 35
Joined: 16 Sep 2018, 23:01

Jayanthi Kumaresh, Yours Truly Margazhi and the Music Academy, Dec 25, 2020

Post by tmmurali »

I love the sound of the veena and especially enjoy Jayanthi Kumaresh's music. I heard two concerts by her, one at "Yours Truly, Marghazhi" (Federation of City Sabhas) and the other at the Music Academy, both on Christmas Day. At the first venue, Bangalore Arjunkumar on the mridangam and Pramath Kiran on the tabla and morsing accompanied her. At the second, K. U. Jayachandra Rao was on the mridangam and Trichy S. Krishnaswamy on the Ghatam.

Both concerts had similar durations (90 minutes) and structures: the first three items had milli-alapanais and rounds of swarams, the fourth item was the main with a ragam and a thanam, followed by the thani, and one to two thukkadas.

At Yours Truly Margazhi, the milli-alapanais were for kalyAni, kAnada, and manOranjani, preceding gaNapatE mahAmatE, sukhi evarO, and aTu kArAdani, respectively. The swarams for kalyAni and for kAnada were bright and enjoyable.

The RTP in behAG was simply outstanding, with one coruscating, transportive stretch during the thanam. She brought out multifarious shades of the ragam, plaintive, pleasing, playful, peppy, placid, She said that the pallavi was in khanda jati triputa thAlam, samam eduppu but did not disclose its lyric. It may have been an instrumental pallavi. The swarams in malayamArutham, rItigowla, and kedaragowla were very nicely done, with smooth transitions to behAg after each ragam.

Pramath Kiran who had been playing the tabla till now brought out the morsing for the thani avarthanam. The video gave some closeups of his playing the instrument.

The final pieces were a thillana in mishra shivaranjani and kamAkshi lOkasAkshi in madhyamAvathi.

At the Music academy, there were milli alapanais of shanmukhapriyA/chAmaram, yadukula kAmbodhi, and mandhAri.

The shanmukhapriyA song was siddhi vinAyakam anisham. The swarams were top-notch.

The yadukula kambodhi piece was amba kAmakshi by Shyama Shastri.

I have liked mandhAri ever since I heard a recording of Ramnad Krishnan singing paralOka bhayamU but have struggled to form a mental identity of the ragam. Usually, I hear it as panthuvarAli that lacks something. Here, for a change, it sounded a lot like amrithavarshini++. I was able to identify it unambiguously only after the opening notes of ninnu jeppa. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the delineation of the ragam, especially the silken touches in the lower octave towards the end. Somewhat faster paced than the song, the swarams were scintillating, e.g., the few seconds when she only plucked the strings and her right hand was off the fretboard.

Later, armed with the knowledge of the identity of the ragam, I went back and listened to the alapanai with more attention. This time, I could not hear the amrithavarshini but did hear more panthuvarAli.

The main item was a ragam-thanam of gowrimanOhari followed by gurulEkha yatuvanti. Although she did not announce that she would play a thanam, there clearly was one. In contrast to the mandhAri swarams, there was a roughly 15-second long segment where she eschewed plucking and let the right hand do all the talking. The scalarity of the ragam meant that it did not evoke as many reactions and emotions as the behAg. The conclusion of this piece was an energetic sawal-jawab session with the percussionists before they played the thani avarthanam.

The concluding piece was the same as in the first concert.

In the video of the Music Academy concert, several close-up shots from behind-right (with respect to her) afforded a unique perspective on her fingering and plucking of the veena. Her own enjoyment of the music enhanced the experience. At one point, it seemed she was singing along sotto voce during the madhyamAvathi piece.

P.S. The user interface for the Music Academy site for online concerts is quite clunky. After logging in, I had to click about five or six buttons (including two to close videos I was not interested in) before I could get to the concerts I wanted to see. If the institution continues with online concerts, I hope it loses its fascination for pop-up windows and tabs and streamlines the user interface considerably. On the positive side, the interface for purchasing tickets is smooth and the free concerts are on YouTube, hopefully for posterity.
Last edited by tmmurali on 01 Jan 2021, 23:46, edited 1 time in total.

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: Jayanthi Kumaresh, Yours Truly Margazhi and the Music Academy, Dec 25, 2020

Post by rajeshnat »

Thank you for your lovely two writeups tmmurali. Appreciate your enthusiasm for hearing even milli alapanas.

Particularly once or twice I have heard those moments where Jayanti just plays without plucking with the already created tension

Post Reply