Suryaprakash@Chennai Fine Arts(VaniMahal) on Sept 09th,2022

[rajeshnat]

Suryaprakash@Chennai Fine Arts(VaniMahal) on Sept 09th,2022
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Vocal : Suryaprakash
Violin : Pappu GyanDev
Mrudangam : Sunaada Krishna , disciple of Mannargudi Eswaran
Kanjira : S Venkataramanan

Concert Type : Nirvana - no concert to follow
Day/Duration : Friday/ 2 hours and 15 mins - 06:00 to 08:15 PM
Hall : Vanimahal
Sabha: Chennai Fine arts lead by Able and fanta fabulous Murali
Occasion : Dedicated to Memory of Kalaimamani Dr Saraswati (Looking at the photo she appears quite young, i have no idea about her, some one can write)

1.viruththam - vArana Mukhataan Velga..- Arabi - ??? (Lji help)
2.vigneshwaram subhakaram (S) - arabi - tulasivanam
4 mins swaras

3. Janaki ramana (N,S)- suddhaseemanthini - T
3 mins neraval in raktha nalina dhala nayana kripAla and 3 mins swaras
4. vaagaDeeshwani vAni saraswati (R,N) - saraswati - HMB
6 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return
4 mins neraval neevE shakthi

5. kavavE kanyakumari(R)- sahana - Dr Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna
2 mins alapana with no violin return

One has to first congragulate this gentleman Murali who is the patron of chennai fine arts. I am assuming he is also the founder of chennai fine arts.Chennai fine arts does not have a hall, but he still hunts around in chennai and keeps concert in mylapore which i attended with G Ravikiran a week back ,one that was in tiruvanmiyur which i missed recently and now in vanimahal. I entered at 06 01 pm , as i walked inside the hall, the thamizh viruththam was already on . Kudos to starting on time , well done Murali and chennai fine arts.

The concert was advertised by the sabha as a tribute to some one by name kalaimaamani Dr saraswati , i dont know who that is but the stage backdrop with the picture looked she is young who had to move on, condolences

Also with the recent demise of padmabhushan Tiruvalangadu VembuIyer Sankaranarayanan possibly many numbers were from TVS. Incidentally one third did not have MMI-TVS influence.(yamunakalyani rarest of rare dikshitar, sahana Dr MBMK and MegaRagamalika of his own) .

As i entered Arabi was on with few lines as varanamukhataan , then the rare tulasivanam krithi vigneshwaram subhakaram came in with rolling sarvalaghu swaras. Arabi is a fantastic raga that can easily compete with openers like nattai, hamsadhwani and it was a terrific start.There was a writeup that suryaprakash learnt this arabi krithi from TVS and that was a great tribute to his guru TVS

I am in joy when i hear a lot of nadaswara pidi preferably T krithis in the nayana piDI cluster. # 2 drop in concerts is key and there came in suddhaseemanthini from the near asaveri family. Arresting kalapramanam tightness with a bliss of neraval in rakta nalina dhala nayana kripAla with organic swaras establishes the great MMI school . Krithis like sudda seemanthini of T is a fine testimony that demonstrates intensity of carnatic music and the so called kalaikattufying is assured.

The grand paramaguru HMB who was the guru of MMI came in next . Saraswati ragam was well done and suryaprakash at the end of the alapana said he is dedicating to Dr Saraswati. Lovely neraval came in with lot of shakthi in neeve Shakthi. After saraswati, the cooling vilambit came out well. when BMK died say 5 years back , musicians like suryaprakash, pantula rama, trichur brothers and Amrutha venkatesh gave a lot of extraordinary krithis of DR BMK that i attended. BMK perhaps had the famous vandanamu in mind when he composed this kAvavE sahana krithi with so much of sahana inbuilt pleads , bit kind of resembling a syama sastri krithi in its dedication to goddess .BMK has to celebrated more as a vaggeyakkara , personally to me he is far more creative vaggeyakkara than he as a vidwan.

[rajeshnat]

6. kAvAvA (S) - varAli - PSivan
swaras for 5 minss

7A.inta sowkhya (R S T) - kApi - T
12 mins alapana and 6 mins violin return
12 mins swara
7B. tani for 16 mins

8. devargal arul seidha raagangalE - Mega ragamaliga of 28 or 29 ragas - Suryaprakash
9. paramasivathmajam - yamunakalyani - MD

10A.viruththam - agalagillEn iRaiyum (kalyanavasantham) + nigaril amarar munikkaNangaL(hamsanandi) -nammazhwar paasuram
10B. Sreenivasa tiruvenkata - hamsanandi - Papanasam sivan
11. pavamana -sowrashtram + mangalam Kosalendraya - shurutti

The contrast post sahana with a fast breezy varali ka va va was well done. This school is so distinct with fast fillers with long swara kalpana patterns .95 percent of todays musicians donot sing long fast fillers .At the most they sing a bit fast number without fast swaras or generally go for prebuilt cittaswaras. Swarakalpanas in krithis like ka va va or even better say orajupu, manavyala or bantureeti are extraordinary to give so much intensity to CM . When swaras are sung with no excessive rotation and fragmentation, i personally like that more .

It was coffee break , not in general sense a coffee with some decoction. It was inta sowkya as main. This raga with this krithi is designed for a voice throw where any musician can go up and up , yet rasikas ears will never get teared up feeling . What a joy of kaapi, my mind recollected about 15 years back when Arasi and her husband krishnan went to parthasarathi sabha to hear that day inta sowkhya. That day i did not go to that concert , but some one by name aravindsdad.blogspot.com uploaded that concert. That was super extraordinary . This school gets Coffee with right piping hotness and also at times right extremely chilled sangathis. I was bit disappointed that there was no neraval in swara raga laya sudha rasa, sadhguru gave a box of chocolates in coffee flavour . Suryaprakash concert being 2 hours plus had to censor neraval out .In kApi swaras he caught up so well. How many patterns of kapi swaras , he was like a leisurely bird in a western ghat hill taking a brisk pace with a lovely raise then a bit long dwell with a leisurely squat after soaring bit high. That raise and squat was distinct with additional asethetics . Kapi in last 8 mins swaras was a delight , no violin return he kept on going not just like Madurai Mani , but also like Taala Raaga Swaroopan TRS.MMI ideas in TRS structure

The next devaragal arul seidha ragangale was well done with his 29 or 28 ragas . If SRK or Tanjore sankara iyer left a great ranjani maliga raagamaliga this extraordinary ragamaliga is bound to have a legacy as vaggeyakkara very firmly. Suryaprakash own devargal arul seida ragangale had a janaranjakam touch and was well received

For me the pick of the whole concert was the last two. I have heard so many artists ,not even one artist has sung this rare paramasivathmajam of Dikshitar. What a lovely krithi of MD ,with the voice getting into the zone with varali, kaapi and mega ragamalika, this was a fantastic challenger to say another muttuswami dikshitar krithi like jambupathE. Drupad style was also adopted by quick thinking percussion team .

The last nammazhwar pasuram was expected to be fantastic and it was indeed. How does one sing so long without an enery drain gap or hiding under the canopy of violin return .

Long winding swaras of varali kavava filler,then copious non stop coffee and then such a long devargul arul seidha with zero violin return , then a certainly bit long paramasivathmajam of Dikshitar and then this paasuram agalikile for just 2 ragas for about 16 mins with a minimal 1 mins violin return .When kalyana vasantham was on, my mind again raced to Rajalakshmi Krishnan when that day which i did not attend when he ended this paasuram with Arasi's inru varuvaaano . That did not happen but a lovely hamsanandi exhaustive viruththam part happened .

The words in nammazhwar paasuram go like "adi keezh irundu pugundEne" , in keezh irundu he goes so much into mandara sthayi steps slowly and steadily and flourishes upto tara sthayi tiruvenkatAnE ,i almost walked from tirupati alipiri to tirumala Venkatachalpathi sanctum sanctorum. The expected srinivasa tiruvenkata is a hamsanandi delicacy , one has to give it to papansam sivan - the thamizh thyagaraja with so much musically aligned drops like jagannatha , changu chakranE .

Pappu Gyan Dev played very well , i particularly like his no touch and no intrusion approach during course of song . I could spot bit of MSG touch in Kalyanavasantham and kapi. THe mrudangist Sunaada krishna is new to me , i just googled to find that he is learning from mannargudi easwaran . No overbanging good sunadaam . During krithi and madhyamakaala swaras he was really good , but i think in parts like say varali and kaapi second half swaras he needs to be bit more anticipate and he has to work there especially to catch the MMI crescendo.

S Venkataramanan in kanjira is a careful watcher and one of the best kanjira players due to his discipline to selectively play. He is so conscious not to overload percussion , he joins only when needed . In Kaapi his experience to rotate in long swaras was some thing i will cherish for long time.Tani of Sunaada was very intelligent and had lovely sunaadam , i could spot mannargudi easwaran approach where there was not too much of korvais. Best wishes for the youngest Sunaada krishna to be a big star.

Suryaprakash 2 hours and 15 mins concert is actually a near 3 hour concert of content with unsagging intensity. I wish Chennai Fine arts gave another 25 mins or so , i would have got may be a surya or chandrakowns or amruthavarshini quick cloud burst cameo pallavi like TVS,. The needle could have gone bit towards outstanding ,now without that it just stays excellent.

Overall an excellent concert for 2 hours and 15 mins

[rajeshnat]

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Suryaprakash@Chennai Fine Arts(VaniMahal) on Sept 09th,2022
--------------------------------------------------------------
Vocal : Suryaprakash
Violin : Pappu GyanDev
Mrudangam : Sunaada Krishna , disciple of Mannargudi Eswaran
Ghatam : S Venkataramanan

Review is in below link

www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=377430#p377430

[K Nagarajan]

Dear Mr Rajeshnat,
Thank you for the detailed review.
I also attended this excellent concert.
The ambience of a small hall helped me to observe the performing artists so closely and understand how much hard work and sadhana they might have put in to give this kind of superlative performance.
I came to know that the kanjira artist Sri Venkataramanan is the son of Sri Chitthoor K Shyamasundar.

[arasi]

This concert turned out to be a super special one, no wonder: an emotionally charged leading artist honoring his guru TVS in a special way: in rAgAs and kritis favored by him.

I have heard Suryaprakash sing in the same hall a couple of times (Dr. Narmada and Charumathi accompanying him if I recall well). Yes, as Nagarajan says, this hall affords intimacy in spite of not being a really mini hall with a boxed-in feeling. It has an ambience too.

It is hard to come by--a voice like that of Suryaprakash's for its mellifluous quality. inRu varuvAnO was taken up on the concert stage more by him than by any other artiste. He surprised me in Parthasarathy Swamy Sabha soon after the CD sung by Sumitra Nitin was released. That day, Sri MA Sundaresan and Sri Bhakthavathsalam accompanied him. Another song he favored was vandE thuNai tandE in Suddha dhanyAsi (from Vidushi Neela Ramgopal's CD) which I have heard him sing with fervor.

Then came engirundO vandAi, the CD where he was more enthusiastic in its production than I was--a Rasikas.org phenomenon again, arunk wondering why on the dance stage there were hardly any songs expressing a man's love for a woman, and soon, I got a dozen songs or so in a row and Surya got to work on getting the CD ready by the time I came to India.Then again, so did Gayathri Girish, Neela Ramgopal and Sumitra Nitin (two on her part) with their CDs!
This is supposed to be a concert review, not a self promotion for my CDs I had to go on about them because Rajesh brought it up, and I had to acknowledge Suryaprakash and of course others who sang the songs with enthusiasm!

More than anything else, it shows how during the years of its existence, how at Rasikas.org, exchanged ideas go on to become other things

[rajeshnat]

Suryaprakash-PappuGyanDev-SunaadaKrishna-SVenkataramanani@ChennaiFineArts-on-Sept09th2022