Hi I am just wondering what woudl happen if an artiste is taken ill suddenly during the season. say for instance if an accompanying violinist is ill and cannot come what si the fall back ? what si the redemption that the sabha Sec does ( the most restive man till the artistes' arrival).
I quite often see that the artiste voice gets strained and worse towards the end of december.
this is also a nippy season , not a time when your voice would be at your best especially forsiingers of advanced age. titbits: an illustrious ENT reaps great benefit out of this who is mobbed by vocalist.
it keeps happening. and sabha secretaries have to run around to find a replacement, be it vocalist, be it violinst, be it mridangist, be it upa pakkavadhyam, be it tambura... and its quite a thing to find a matching person to fill the slot, in the short notice.
does it happen often . especially during other times it is ok . but during december when all the artistes are busy how do they manage. they may go for a tacky one yeah?
It looks as if an example of this in practice is poor Palghat Ragu. It seems he has had to cancel all his concerts.
It must make it very hard for the sabbhas when a top-rank artist is forced to do this.
I think there is a very high standard among these musicians. I am sure that I am not the only one here who knows of instances where, through health or family or personal difficulty that would keep most of us from our work, a musician is on stage without showing a trace of problem to the public.
Of course the record is not 100%, and I recall a concert where the mridangist failed to turn up. Another mridangist who was in the building at the time agreed to fill in. He did not even have the instrument, but played on a school mridangam.
Well this happened over 10 years ago and it was off season... may not be relevant to the original post but I want to share this nugget.... A small sabha in Egmore organized a concert of Sri TN Seshagopalan accompanied by Sri Chandrasekharan and Sri TK Murthy. Due to a miscommunication, TKM could not make it to the concert. The other two artists and about 15 rasikas waited for over an hour before the sabha secratary heard that TKM was not going to make it. TNS asked for the concert to be cancelled but the sabha secretary convinced him to sing with just the violin accompaniment. Sri Chandrasekharan plucked his violin strings at appropriate times to keep the talam. I recall Amba Neelayatakshi and Nannu Brovu Lalitha as the main pieces of the hour and half concert.
knrh05
Last edited by knrh05 on 22 Dec 2007, 00:12, edited 1 time in total.
today i read that a mrudangam artist could not come and to the rescue of sabha secretary, mannargudi Easwaran performed.
Long back in one SKR's concert in Mylapore, Mr VV Ravi was to come and as he cud not, his brother performed (I attended)
I think it was on 22.6.83 at MFA with the flg songs
GananAyakam - poornashadjam
sobillu jaganmohini
O rajeevaksha Arabi
nee samAna subha bhandhuvarAli
chakkaniraja karaharappriya
kandanAlmudualai madhuvanthi ?
koovi azhaithal valachi
syapasya kausalya ... mangalam
beautiful concert, i stll remember the echo in the auditorium !
i have quite often witnessed that the main artiste and the accompanists travel in the same vehicle to the venue. this is also in a way to avoid any eleventh hour confusion. but the problem starts if all are of higher stature and where do they meet. quite interesting though. and I also heard that during the season the acconiment is not always the choice of the main artiste. it is the sabha actually... how true?
I think it is often true, although I stand to be corrected by the more experienced here. I guess preferences are known, and I'm sure senior artists make it quite plain if there is anyone they do not want to play for them. Maybe/probably the proposals are checked with the main artist.
Here is an interesting anecdote.....Mannargudi Easwaran was then a student of New college at that time attending evening classes. Directly from the classes he was returning home and on the way, stopped at the Anjaneyar Temple in Mylapore to listen to a concert. As you can imagine, he was in his college uniform, trousers, shirt etc. Mid way thru the concert, the mridangist got a heart attack of sorts and collapsed on the stage. Immediately, Easwaran and others rushed to help him out and sent him with some company to the hospital. The kutcheri had to go on and the temple authorities requested Easwaran to complete the concert. He borrowed some one's spare veshti, changed into that, played the reminder of the concert. That was not the only time this kind of experience, where he had been called to provide accompaniment at the last minute has happened. Even recently, he was asked to accompany Shri TNS because the scheduled vidwan could not take part due to some reason.
One thing has to be said about the glorious spirit of the professional mrigangam community. Couple of years ago, one famous percussion artist took ill with the result, that artist could not perform in any of the season's concerts, what ever he had committed to. I am sorry, I do not know the name of the artist. But I am told, the entire mridangam professionals rose to the occassion, allocated the entire schedule of the artist who was ill amongst themselves taking into account their own schedule as well, played out the season. Not only that, the remuneration thus gained for performing those concerts, was gathered and given to artist who had fallen ill. A remarkable trait, indeed.
knrh05 wrote:Well this happened over 10 years ago and it was off season... may not be relevant to the original post but I want to share this nugget.... A small sabha in Egmore organized a concert of Sri TN Seshagopalan accompanied by Sri Chandrasekharan and Sri TK Murthy. Due to a miscommunication, TKM could not make it to the concert. The other two artists and about 15 rasikas waited for over an hour before the sabha secratary heard that TKM was not going to make it. TNS asked for the concert to be cancelled but the sabha secretary convinced him to sing with just the violin accompaniment. Sri Chandrasekharan plucked his violin strings at appropriate times to keep the talam. I recall Amba Neelayatakshi and Nannu Brovu Lalitha as the main pieces of the hour and half concert.
knrh05
This episode was narrated by MSS herself to Mani Krishnaswami in her interview in Sruthi.At one of her concerts,the violinist could not turn up and the great Chembai doubled up as violinist and saved the day for her
