S Sowmya @ The Music Academy 22nd December 2013

Date/Time : December 22nd, 4pm
Venue : Music Academy
Acoustics : Excellent
Ambience : Excellent
Crowd : Good

Dr Sowmya Srinivasan is a clever lady. On a day, when her voice was not exactly co-operative, she breezed through a prime-time slot with verve and panache. The SarangaAdhiTalaVarnam 'InthaModi' gave her innings a solid start.'Sarasasamadhana'inKapiNarayani gave way to many innovative kalpanaswarams for the Anupallavi 'ParamaShambava'

Sowmya unfailingly produces some hidden treasures from her arsenal every year. 'MaayuranathamAnisham' in Dhanyasi set to Mishra Chapu is another rare MuthuswamiDikshitar piece, which she honed with a lovely raga sketch and KalpanaSwarams at 'Vedanta GuruguhaNivasam'. She then presented a compostion by her Guru Dr S. Ramanathan in Gopriya which is a janyam of Rishabapriya. She also attempted a fair sketch of the complex ragam and swarams at 'Na Moravinaradha'

The diligent 'EkkalathilumUnnai' by ThiruvarurRamaswamy Pillai in PoorviKalyani preceded an elaborate Shankarabaranam essay. 'Nannubrochutakuna' a Mysore Vasudevacharkrithi was sung with neraval and swarams at 'Kannathandriyu' A brisk 'Banturithi' with smart swarams at Ramanama was very catchy.

A beautiful and structuredMukhariRagam and Thanam ended in the Pallavi 'SamajaGaaminiShankariMamavaSadashivaManoranjani' set to Mishra ThriputaThalam with RagamaligaSwarams in Behag, Hamsanandi and Madhyamavathi. In the last few minutes she squeezed in the KavadiChindu 'VillinaiOthapuruvam' in Punnagavarali.

Her regular percussionist PoongulamSubramanium on Mridangam and ChandrasekharaSharma were fully 'in tune' with her. MR Gopinath on the violin was good in parts. It was a pleasure to watch the 'professional' at work who took her tools as on that day-her voice as it was- and extracted 100% from it.