Category Archives: Carnatic Music

Weekend…

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I missed the last concert of Sanjay since it was in Nanganallur – the area still seems inaccessible to me. That was a couple of weeks back. Now, I come to know that there is a Sanjay’s concert tomorrow. And I am going to miss that too. 🙁 The reason is I am going for Ghananjani – concert by Mandolin Srinivas, Zakir Hussain, Stephen Devassey and Dominque Di Piazza for Shakti Foundation. Incidentally, there is a concert of T.M.Krishna too tomorrow! There are suddenly lots to choose from! Talking about the weekend, I am going to watch Delhi 6 on Sunday. 🙂 Liked the stills from the movie. Liked the trailer. And, needless to say, love the songs! 🙂 Can’t wait to watch the movie! Then there’s Oscar on Monday. Fingers crossed! What are your plans for the weekend?

Ravikiran’s Concert

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N. Ravikiran – Chitraveena
V. Sanjeev – Violin
Mannargudi Easwaran – Mridangam
Anirudh Athreya – Khanjira
Anahita – Vocal Support

On 7th Feb at Raga Sudha (Organized by Isai)

Concert Duration: less than 1.5 hrs

List of Songs:
1. Varnam – Sri
2. Swaminata Paripalaya – Nattai – Swarams at Swaminata
3. Appa Rama – Pantuvarali – Alapana; Neraval & Swarams at kapi varidi
4. Sri Subrahmanyaya Namaste – Kambhoji – tani avartanam
5. Tillana – Sunadavinodini – Composed by Ravikiran
6. Mangalam – Sowrashtram; Madhyamavati Outline

Before the concert, violinist Embar Kannan was awarded the title ‘isai tenRal’ by Isai. Sangita Kalanidhi M. Chandrasekaran was the chief guest. After all the speeches, Ravikiran’s concert started very late. And this was the reason why Ravikiran decided to skip playing alapana, neraval, etc. for Sri Subrahmanyaya Namaste and had the tani Avartanam alone for it.

Overall, the concert was very good. Didn’t find anything extraordinary but.

What should I name this post?

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  • Was feeling so bored sometime back. Genda Phool, Dil Gira Dafatan, Hey Kaala Bandar, Latika’s Theme, Dreams on Fire, Sandeep’s Palaya Sada and Sanjay’s Ee Vasudha (Sanjay’s Sahana! Bliss!) later, I see no signs of boredom. 🙂
  • There were a lot of things that I wanted to do during the long weekend. But now, the 3 days seems to have passed by in a jiffy without me doing most of the things I planned to do. 🙁
  • A 2-hr long program on radio where so many celebrities spoke about ARR, 2 ARR’s interviews in the morning and one more in the evening, Special episode of Super Singer – a treat for Rahmaniacs! 🙂
  • There’s a concert of T.M.Krishna today evening 🙂 What will be the main? Todi? 😉 I will mostly not stay for the full concert since I want to watch ARR’s interview!
  • I want to write posts on Chithra Madhavan’s Talk on ‘Kanchipuram – Art, History & Architecture’, Mylapore Festival and Sonu Niigam’s and Benny Dayal’s concerts at Saarang. When there is so much to write about, why am I not writing?
  • Nothing other than the clichéd random thoughts comes to my mind when I think of a title for this post!

The three ‘musik-seers’ ;)

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When I read the title and saw the photo in this article in ‘Friday Review’, the supplement of ‘The Hindu’, my initial reaction was ‘These men??? :O’ before I went on to read the full article. Why did I give that reaction?

During Sanjay’s Nadopasana concert last year, these men were sitting on the row behind mine and they kept saying the raaga names loudly and singing along quite loudly. I can’t tell you what a great nuisance it was. Though I did try my best to control my rising temper, when Sanjay started the Charukesi alapana and one of them started loudly singing his own version of Charukesi alapana, I couldn’t stop myself any longer from asking him to stop singing. He did stop singing, but only for a few minutes after which he resumed his singing again! Since I didn’t want to say anything more, I went to the row in front of mine and sat. During the Season, I saw these men in quite a few concerts and the moment I saw them, I made sure that I was sitting as far away from them as possible!

It’s high time that people like these started remembering that the audience has come to a concert to listen to the musicians on stage and not to listen to them! One can enjoy a concert in their own way, only as long as it doesn’t disturb others and mar the concert listening experience of others. Now that they have been featured in a newspaper, I think they will be encouraged even more to show-off their singing skills and knowledge during the concerts. 😐 Seeing this thread in rasikas.org, I felt happy that I wasn’t the only one who found what they did so irritating.

P.S.: Here’s my earlier rant on the same topic.

Margazhi Raagam

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I watched Margazhi Raagam today 🙂 To begin with, it’s not everyday that you get to watch a ‘movie’ in a theatre where the majority of the audience comprises of Maamas and Maamis. 😉

Coming to the ‘movie’, the camera and lighting and of course, the audio are, needless to say, excellent. I liked the stage setting too. I didn’t like Bombay Jayashri’s part that much. Her singing, though quite good, was nowhere close to how it was in her Music Academy concert. Or so I felt. Graceful is the word that I would associate with Jayashri when I see her sing. Eyes closed and lost in the music is how she appears. But since I didn’t find anything that great about her singing, the visuals didn’t matter much to me. But, I just loved TMK’s part. I liked his part visually too since he is more expressive while singing and those have been captured so well on the camera.

Every moment of TMK’s singing in this is superb! I felt so happy listening to TMK after a long time (or so it feels like, since Sanjay is all I am listening to most of the times!)! Watching this movie today has compensated for no Sanjay’s or TMK’s concert happening today. 😉

P.S.: I didn’t want to know before watching the movie, what was sung by TMK and Bombay Jayashri in that. So, am not posting the songs list here now. If you want me to post, do let me know.

The year that was!

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A major part of the first half of 2008 saw me being down with boredom. And then, there was this bloggers’ block. The no. of unfinished posts lying in my drafts written during that period stands testimony to that. These apart, though 2008 was better than 2007, still quite a few things which I wish had not happened, happened. But hey, now is not the time to dwell on all those. There are lots of moments to cherish and a lot of other things thinking about which makes me so happy.
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The craze for Aruna Sairam’s singing!

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When I came to know that T.M.Krishna’s concert at Music Academy was on the same day as Aruna Sairam’s, the first thought that came to my mind was, ‘Will I even get a ticket for TMK’s concert?’ Having heard many say that people queue up outside Music Academy as early as 5:30 in the morning (!!), I knew it was going to be difficult to get a ticket. When I asked the person at the ticket counter a few days before the concert, he too confirmed the same. So, on the day of the concert, at 5 am sharp, my dad and sister went to Music Academy to find there were already 3 of them waiting. Seems a lady came as early as 4:30 itself! By the time I went there at 6:30 or so, the place was already full. How popular Aruna Sairam is!

Music Academy has to really be commended for making excellent arrangements for those who had come to buy the tickets. Neatly-arranged chairs for those coming in and ensuring that people are seated in the order in which they came, serving coffees at around 6 o’ clock for those waiting, issuing tokens at around 7 am with the number of tickets (the no. of tickets were restricted to 3 per head on that day initially) and the price of the tickets written on it, opening the ticket counter at 8:20 and calling out the token nos. in order and issuing the tickets – the whole thing was very well-organized.

I guess my sister and I must have been the only ones who didn’t go for Aruna Sairam’s concert despite having tickets. We did go for the last 35 minutes of her concert to find that the auditorium was packed to the full-capacity and the only place where we could sit was the steps in between two bays!