Suryaprakash@Music Academy on Dec 16th.2013

Suryaprakash@Music Academy on Dec 16th.2013

 

Concert - Grand Shankarabharanam and a flamboyant brindavani

Date/Time:   Monday, 16th December, 4:15pm
Venue:         Music Academy, Chennai - 18
Acoustics: Outstanding with right placement of Speakers
Ambiance:     Near Perfect with a right decoration of Stage and Lighting
Crowd:          The concert was a ticketed concert. Attendance around 400 (ground floor+balcony)

In nutshell: The concert season of December has an amalgamation of kutcheris by vidwans and vidushis . For sure few sabhas like Music Academy which is also an institution of highest repute, the contemplation of what to present and how to present is indeed classically deep for every musician. The Academy has a base of listeners who look for a significant preview of what was in store of the historic past and also how a musician can extrapolate his musically original idea in a futuristic runway. Vidvan vocalist R Suryaprakash was assisted by vidvans Mullaivasal Chandramouli in violin, Madipakkam Suresh in mrudangam and Malaikottai R M DeenadAyulu in Morsing. Read on to see how the concert was.

The concert was centered on two significant numbers. The first was the main in shankarAbharanam which gave a preview of historic past of carnatic legacy. The krithi was a monumental Muttuswamy Dikshitar krithi "akshayalinga vibho in mishra chapu taalam" . Suryaprakash presented the entire shankarabharanam in an extremely aesthetic way, the alapana and neraval in "badari vana moola" had a clear buildup from a meditative start to a real high usage of tara sthAyi brigas that always adds a real charm. The swaras in shankarAbharanam was sung exceptionally well with few touches in mel sthayi gAndharam that was elaborate- showcased the real sustenance of his vocal reach. In particular singing sarvalaghu swaras exhibiting his school of Shri Madurai Mani Iyer in mishra chApu talam is a very difficult task to accomplish as there are few attempts in the mishra chApu and sarvalghu combination.

The ragam taanam pallavi for roughly 40 minutes was a demonstration of his futuristic voyage. The pallavi ragam was brindAvani and it was a dwi nadai pallavi – in tisram and mishra nadai. The purvAngam line of the pallavi was "govindam ananta sayanam" and the uttarangam line was "Chandra soorya nayanam bhajEham". The ragam and taanam in brindAvani was concise with a clean trikalam done in the pallavi. The pallavi ragamaliga swaras were traversed in brindavani and 3 other ragas in both directions . The ragamaliga ragas were suryakAntam and soorya with pallavi phrase "soorya nayanam bhajEham "and ragam ravichandriska ending with "Chandra soorya nayanam" . The pallavi was really thought through with a high dose of musical aesthetics that was indeed a testimony of his original music idea. Certainly the main krithi and pallavi were the top picks in the concert.

Prior to main krithi the ata tala varnam in reetigowlai and sarasAksha in pantuvarAli did provide quite an enough thrust to what was to come later. In particular the thyagaraja krithi- vinata suta rA rA in husEni with a dash of short neraval and swaras was very appealing. The fast filler was sarasa sama dhana in kApinarayani with a blistering pace of swaras reminding his tutelage of MMI-TVS school. The post RTP had a Thamizh viruththam in bheemplas on Lord Muruga.The concert ended with a rare kamakshi lokasakshini of shyama sastri in madhyamAvati.

The violinist vidvan chandramouli came into full form from huseni. The mrudangist Madipakkam Suresh , disciple of Guru Karaikudi Mani played well for all songs with a nice fast roll and adapted quite a bit of sarvalaghu when the situation demanded . His tani for 20 minutes with deenadAyulu was good, except for a rather longish segment of repetitive nature by the morsing artiste, which could have been avoided and valuable time saved. The morsing artist DeenadAyulu had a good shruthi suddham in his twang instrument though, which was a saving grace. Suryaprakash took a little time to warm up on resuming the song after the tani.

Suryaprakash maiden concert in a prime evening slot is his first promotion concert in Music Academy. The academy has indeed facilitated in providing him the right opportunity, the concert was a success that showcased his musical brilliance. One has to see how he moves on from here in the next 5 to 10 years in getting more and more accepted by connoisseurs of music.

Overall an excellent concert for 2 and half hours.

[[Rajesh N, is an IT Professional who lives in Chennai. He is passionate about carnatic music. ]