Sandeep Narayan @ Arkay 11th Anniv. - Nov 28, 2021

[shankarank]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIkwZH6rMp0

An excellent rAga exposition for nAttakurinji and Bilahari by Sandeep. The husky voice of Sanjay came out better than Sanjay during those husky takes.

L . Ramakrishnan gave sincere involved replies for both rAgas.

It was great to see Trivandrum Balaji running into Sanjay schoolers ( not sure if this has been happening a lot, but my Window is only Arkay and Parivadini and other online streams, that turn up on youtube suggestions). Both are not expected to gel, given the loose take on syllables and brigas by Sandeep like his Guru. But this concert they gelled well overall.

Smarasada manasa - inspired by Trivan"drum" padmanAbha kShetra vAsi sitting next? Good choice. But it would have have been also better if the delibrative Manasu viSaya had been chosen for nATTaikkurinji!

However I was disappointed to see Trivandrum Balaji using a blaring vibration filled instrument! What? A kucci Mridangam? I have read somewhere that Sri Palghat Raghu had used it post Pazhani's demise for a while. But a lot of majesty is lost for the kind of sollu executions done in that school. The vibration is a distraction and subtlety is lost.

These types of exercises at below timeline ( caturaSra triSram) will sound a lot better with the trademark kappi mridangam:

https://youtu.be/wIkwZH6rMp0?t=5289

Balaji avargaLE! anda kappi mridanga gauravatta ippaDi viTTukoDukkalAma?

How can Balaji Sir, sacrifice the majesty of the kappi Mridangam?

On that line, I would note : Anirudh AthreyA has one of the best balanced sounds on kanjira ( gumkaram and the takAram), a very subtle one to execute weighty sollus and complimented the performance well.

So mansu viSaya and kappi Mridangam were a miss!

[CRama]

Why no review about the RTP in Ganamurthy. This was a very good concert. Because of other pressures, I did not write the review.