Here are some photos taken at today’s ‘Margazhi Raagam’ DVD launch:
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Rainbow captured on my mobile at OMR today morning:

tumne dekhi hai dhanak to, bolo rang kitne hain
saat rang kehne ko, phir bhi sang kitne hain
samjho sabse pehle to, rang hote akele to
indradhanush banta hi nahin
(Lines from the song yeh tara woh tara)

I am now at the Koothambalam auditorium in Kalakshetra all set to attend the first December Season concert of T.M.Krishna! The concert will start after some DVD launch programme (I really don’t remember the details of the DVD now!) at 6:30 pm. I hope the speeches get over soon.

Coming straight from office, it took me a good 20-min walk to reach here from the signal near Marundeeshwarar temple. Thanks to the intermittent heavy rain all through the day, the roads were bad and it was difficult walking on the slushy road. But the moment I entered Kalakshetra, I loved the peaceful atmosphere that welcomed me. 🙂 The road which the security directed me to take wasn’t the one used by vehicles. So there was absolute silence except for the sounds of the insects and the sounds of vehicles which was so low that it seemed to come from a far-away place. The pleasant weather, the water droplets falling from the trees, the serene atmosphere, everything in complete contrast to the bad roads, the maddening traffic and the noise in ECR, made me forget everything and set the mood to enjoy the music that is soon going to follow. The programme is about to begin! Cya later!

You are most welcome to skip reading this post!

You are in your 20s, you have at least one thing in your life about which you complain and grumble about often, you are kind of stuck in a comfort zone from which you are not sure if you want to come out or not and you have many friends who are also sailing on the same boat. Now what happens when you get together with any of the friends? Or what happens when any of the friends gets some forward mail which gives all the gyaan about how you should be living your life being contented with what you have or about how you should be enjoying all those small happy moments/things in life?
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At Music Academy (ICICI Bank Music Festival) on 28th November

I came to know about this concert only on the previous day of the concert. I didn’t even make any attempt to see if I will be able to get a pass for this concert and had almost forgotten about it, when, surprisingly, a friend who doesn’t listen to much of Carnatic music called me and said that she had passes for T.M.Krishna’s concert and the moment she saw TMK’s name, she remembered me. 🙂 Going for a concert unexpectedly has more excitement than going for one which you had already planned to go for! Considering the number of TMK’s concerts I will be missing in December, I was happy that I could go for this concert.

Accompanists:
R.K.Shriramkumar – Violin
Tiruvarur Bhakthavatsalam – Mridangam
E.M.Subramaniam – Ghatam

Concert Duration: 2.5 hrs

List of songs:
1. vA murugA vA – bEgaDA – swarams at vA murugA
2. brOcEvArevarE – Sri ranjani – swarams at brOcevarevarE
3. kAlai tUkki – yadukula kAmbhOji – AlApana
4. kathaya kathaya – kalyANi – brief AlApana – neraval at aravindalOcana arivarga niSUdanam
5. kAru bAru – mukhAri – AlApana; swarams at kAru bAru
tani Avartanam
6. pullAgi (viruttam) – varALi, kharaharapriyA, SankarAbharaNam, danyAsi, kApi, behAg, surutti
mATrariyAda – surutti
7. nandagOpAla – yamuna kalyANi
8. jayati jayati – khamAs
9. nI nAma rUpamulaku (started at prahlAda & not pavamAna) – sowrASTram
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dEsh is always synonymous happiness. 🙂 Thanks to TMK & Sangeetha’s concert, I discovered the very beautiful song, prEmaiyil yAvum marandEnE, in dESh. I didn’t know it was from the old movie, Shakuntala starring M.S. till somebody sitting next to me in the concert told me.

The first thing I did yesterday was to search for ‘Sakuntala’ cassette at home & since then, I have been listening to this song on a loop! Till I found that I had an mp3 version of it too with me, I was rewinding the cassette again and again and listening to it. It brought back memories of the days when I had more cassettes than CDs/mp3s and I used to untiringly rewind and listen to many songs again and again from a whole lot of cassettes. Cassettes have almost become a thing of the past now!
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The December Season is going to start in less than a month! Yippee! Now that Sanjay’s concert schedule is also finally available, I have already started making plans! 8 concerts of Sanjay and TMK are on the same day! Sigh!

This is the first concert that TMK & Sangeetha are performing together. It seems yesterday was their wedding anniversary. Here’s wishing them a long musical life together! 🙂

Concert at Narada Gana Sabha (Bharat Sangeet Utsav) on 6th November, 2009

Accompanists:
Akkarai Subbulakshmi – Violin
Poongulam Subramaniam – Mridangam
B.S.Purushotham – Khanjira

Duration of the concert: 2hrs 30 min Continue reading →

A concert by Anil Srinivasan (Piano) & Sikkil Gurucharan (Vocal), accompanied by B.S.Pururshothaman on the Khanjira on 24th July, 2009

See the date of the concert. This is another of those posts which I never got around to publishing here. But today when I am lost in the music of Anil Srinivasan & Sikkil Gurucharan, I feel I shouldn’t leave this post unpublished here. So, after adding/rearranging a few lines and reliving the concert all the while, here it is.
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Watching one of my favourite old movies, Parichay on Filmy channel, guitar practice after a long time and watching the one-hour programme on Orissa on Discovery Channel which has now made me add to Orissa to the looong list of places I want to visit someday – these are the only things worth mentioning about the typical lazy Saturday that today was, when I wasn’t in the mood to even step out of home.

It looks like tomorrow might be a day in complete contrast to today, thanks to

• Sriram V’s talk on ‘C. Saraswathi Bai, First Lady Bhagavatar’ at 9.45 am (Bharat Sangeet Utsav)

• Sriram Parasuram’s lec-dem on ‘Rakti ragas in Hindustani & Carnatic Music’ from 11.00 am – 12:30 pm (Bharat Sangeet Utsav)

• Concert of Anil Srinivasan with the NalandaWay All Girls Children Choir at 6:30 pm at Sir Mutha VenkataSubba Rao concert Hall. Seems some Bharatiar’s compositions will be performed in this concert.

Let’s see if things go as per plans.. Happy Sunday to you all! 🙂