Vocals: Bharati Ramasubban, G Ravikiran, Archana & Aarathi, Prasanna Venkataraman, Vidhya Raghavan, Vishnudev Namboothiri, Sunil Gargyan
Violin: Sandeep Ramachandran, Sai Rakshith, Madan Mohan
Nagaswaram: Mylai Karthikeyan
Flute: Anirudh Bharadwaj
Chitraveena: Vishaal Sapuram
Mridangam: K Arun Prakash
Ghatam: N Guruprasad
Kanjira: G Harihara Sharma
Full recital here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDrhlUupPQ0
A packed house to witness quite a unique spectacle. An intriguing array of songs, spanning Trinity kritis, abhangs, pasurams and Bharatiyar poems - with the theme as Motherhood, interpreted variously as the mother goddess, Thayumanavar, the motherland and Periyazhvar's motherly love.
Brilliantly orchestrated by KAP, with pleasant little instrumental bits in the pauses, and (brief) raga elaborations and charanams divided amongst the numerous performers in a way that each got to shine. He really had a ball with the final "Vande Meenakshi", replete with harmonies and multiple speeds. This is a beautiful little thing that he has birthed, and if ever there is a repeat, it would be good to find a way to get more people to see it without sacrificing the intimacy that Ragasudha hall offers.
Special mention to Mylai Karthikeyan for playing with restraint, and having to play in a shifted key! Vishaal was sadly inaudible for the most part because of a technical issue - otherwise, credit to the sound man at Naada Inbam for balancing it so well (apparently he had been working since 6am). KAP also made it a point to mention the instrumentalists who had to change srutis and the ladies who had to adjust to singing in 1 kattai. Some songs were introduced by Bharati and Archana-Aarathi.
I half-expected a Christmas carol with Mary, which I did not get
but overall, a very good use of Christmas Day morning.