Yesterday was the first time I went to a concert of Gayathri Venkataraghavan. If I remember correctly, the first time I listened to her sing on TV was about a year and a half back. At that time, I didn’t like her singing much. After that, I didn’t listen to her much. But, a 4-hour concert yesterday was too tempting to miss. Since the only thing that I wanted to listen to was Raagam Taanam Pallavi and being a 4-hour concert, there was no way an will not be sung, I went only at 6pm to the concert that had started at 4 itself. The next 2 and a half hours turned out to be the best part of the day what with the concert turning out to be an excellent one! I will surely go to Gayathri Venkataraghavan’s next concert if I am free on that day!

When I entered, Gayathri was singing Maara Jananim in Natakapriya (a raaga I am not familiar with). She was accompanied by Charulatha Ramanujam on the violin, Neyveli Narayanan on Mridangam and Ghatam Karthick on the Ghatam. What followed next was Sri Matrubhootam in Kannada, a favourite of mine. Mohana Rama and the one for which I had gone to the concert in the first place, RTP in Bhairavi, were excellent!

The Ranjani Mrudu Pankaja (Ranjani Maala - Ranjani, Megha Ranjani, Sri Ranjani, Janaranjani), is one song that I just love listening to when sung by Nithyasree Mahadevan. Even though Gayathri sung it well, for me, Nithyasree’s will always remain the best! Before Mangalam, the last two songs for the day, Bhavayami (Yamun Kalyani) and Naada Vindu (Chenchurutti) were two songs that I couldn’t enjoy completely since the person sitting next to me had decided that he will surely sing along with her! :( I had to with a great difficulty, stop myself from telling him to sing a little less loudly.

On the whole, I absolutely enjoyed every bit of the concert. For the complete list of songs and more details about the concert, check out Ram’s post.