Shertalai Ranganatha Sharma@Venus Colony(Alwarpet) On Dec 15th,2018

[rajeshnat]

Shertalai Ranganatha Sharma@Venus Colony (Alwarpet) On Dec 15th,2018
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Vocal : Shertalai Ranganatha Sharma
Vocal Support :behind the main artist not sharing the dias - ????
Violin : MA Sundareswaran
Mrudangam : R Ramesh

Concert Type : Nirvana - no concert to follow / Free Concert
Day/Duration : Saturday/ 1 hour and 55 mins
Hall : Aastika samAjam , Alwarpet
Occassion : Guruvayoor Dorai Trust honouring Tavil vidwan Kaliyamoorthy

01. smaranE oNdE(RS,S) -malayamArutham - PD
02. Shree kamalAmikAya (R)- Shankarabharanam - MD
3 mins alapana and 2 mins violin return

03. sAramEgAni (RS,S) - pantuvarAli - T
6 mins swaras
04. akhilAndeshwari (S) - dwijAvanthi - MD
6 mins swaras

05. paramapurusham hrudaya - lalithaPanchamam - ST
06A. RTP in kApi
16 mins alapana with two rounds of violin return of 7 mins
taanam for 7 mins
Pallavi and swaras for 16 mins
Pallavi line --> kadir velavanE unadhu paadam thunaiyE ! OrAru mughanE devAdi devanE
Swara ragamaliga in kAPi + hamsAnandi + begada + bilahari??
06B. tani for 12 mins

07. Edukku ittanai mOditaan - shuruTTi- Marimutha pillai
08. takadhIm tadhIm nAdhru - tanjam nin padmam - Thillana -Desh - LGJ
09. brief slokham(misssed noting the lines) + pavamAna

There is always season overload that suits many of us for most times inclusive of me .Tyring to make it to concerts on time in the evening is quite a challenge due to family and kid errands .I missed few 6 or 6 30 pm starts due to not making on time to venues . To that extent atleast awards are quite okay to me ,it delays the start of the concert to suit atleast my delay . Guruvayoor Dorai invited AKC Natarajan as chief guest with Cleveland Sundaram and Cleveland Balu to the dias to honour noted thavil vidwan Thiruvalaputhur T A Kaliyamurthy . I came close to 7 the function was put in the paper that it would start from 05 30 onwards . After vote of thanks the concert started around 07:15 pm.

To a great extent the sound system in aastika samajam has improved . I am not sure if these sound engineers and equipments were just hired one time or is that a feature of samAjam for their future concerts .This Aastika samAjam holds a fair count of concerts and I am assuming karaikudi Mani is the main person who works with the sabha team.

Shertalai Ranganatha sharma has a phenomenal throw and intense masculine voice.This concert was curtailed but he did his best to give the smaller subset of audience the best of sampradaya music. He started with a nice malayamArutham , it was a mAlay amrutham nice ambience with a deeper intonation and he gave a great start with smaranE ondE. He has made quite a mark with Dikshitar krithis and the next in shankarabharanam was really superb, a rare kamalAmbA navA avarnam krithi . Personally I have heard once Shri TNS taking up shree kamalAmbikaya shankarabharanam as main. I love this krithi it is as majestic as the kalyani counterpart -kamalAmbAm bhajarE . What a lovely voice and control of brigas , there was a bit of semmangudi touch like singing dakshinamoorthE. As of now i forget or am I right to assume semmangudi has not sung this shankarabharnam kamalambA nava avarnam krithi.

Shertalai tried to change gears and he was partly successful with his next pantuvarali.His voice is quite heavy and yet he has not mastered to sing faster swara patterns with tighter leash like his manaseega voice look alike Voleti Venkateswarulu. Pantuvarali did not come as an antidote to voice problems but still he could have sung more intense swarakalpana.

What a joy to hear his dwijAvanthi with akhilAndeshwari. Definitely his strength is vilambit and his voice texture is pro fanatic in vilambit. I loved every bit of his akhilAndeshwari certain attempts in swaras with controlled high power throw was immaculate ,his keezh kAlam had so much voice strength . He has learnt from swati tirunal school of music but his lalitha panchamam of Swati was just ok . Little more swara kalpana could have made it better, shertalai could have given bit more flair there , his tempo bit sagged there.

I recollect six of seven years back we had a shertalai review of his academy concert. He could not be on time then for an academy concert but he still sang a kApi number as main and got a best senior vocalist award many years back . When Kapi started my thoughts went there with some one writing a review here.Shertalai was grounding every kApi sangathi as a kumbakonam degree- Coffee day. MA sundareswaran who is a bit of hit and miss kind of took the aroma of kApi in a different direction with his frappuchino and cappuchino . Masculine voice drived the Taanam and was measured with voice quality but devoid of any risks .MAS was superb there in taanam with his lovely poruttam and return. Pallavi was well done with a nice trikalam and the swaras were done very well. In swararagamaliga ,It was an exact showcase where the weight of his voice could not change that fast the gears though the attempt was made in each of swararagamaliga(kAPi + hamsAnandi + begada + bilahari??).Shurutti tukkada was done well and Lalgudi thillana in Desh was a great finish

MA sundareswaran is a bit of maverick ,for first few numbers till the beginning of RTP he showed his class of really playing briskly and giving more turn to vocalist. IN taanam his chittappa MSG was kind of there but in alapana of KApi i found bit excessive foreign foray to take the well grounded kApi aroma of Shertalai . R Ramesh had fast fingers and the roll was quite impressive , at times he goes bit overboard with a bounty of strokes during rotation but with MAS immediate response he did play well. Tani was quite well done with just quick round of strokes ,i saw guravayoor dorai appreciating Ramesh a lot.

Overall a very good to excellent concert for 1 hour and 55 mins.

[HarishankarK]

Parama purusham lalitapanchamam seems to emerging as filler for season 2018-2019