The proof of the pudding
VENKATESAN SRIKANTH
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Many tasks may put a musician’s practice at risk, but the real test is in the performance.
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Many talents Sharadh Venkataraman balances art and academia.
Professional courses are exacting, especially, if undertaken from renowned institutions. It is widely believed that it would be difficult for someone undergoing a professional course to pursue any art form seriously, particularly classical music . <
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But today’s youth seem to combine these two with considerable ease. The Carnatic flute recital by Sharadh Venkataraman, currently doing his engineering course from the Indian Institute of Technology, this past week proved the point.
Sharadh began his flute recital with the Saveri raga varnam in Adi tal. He exhibited a remarkable confidence while presenting this varnam in two speeds, besides in tisra nadai. The invocation song on Lord Ganesha was Mysore Jayachamaraja Wodeyar’s “Sri Mahaganapathim Bhajeham” in the raga Atana. The choice of this composition as well as the subsequent swara formats kept Sharadh’s presentation lively.
Multi-tasking
Sharadh has been learning flute from Delhi’s P. N. Krishnan and vocal music from Akhila Krishnan since 1997. Though doing his third year engineering course at Chennai, he continues to receive his music lessons whenever he is in Delhi.
Dikshitar’s “Ananda amirthavarshini” in the raga Amrithavarshini that Sharadh subsequently presented contained a scintillating alap of the raga and creative swara formats. As the centre point of his recital, Sharadh took up Tyagaraja’s “Eduta nilichite” in raga Shankarabharanam. He gave due importance to the sangatis (variations) and brought them out with clarity. His delineation of this raga was good, though he hurried initially and stretched a little too much towards the end.
Besides, the subsequent niraval of a phrase and the swara formats brought his manodharma talents to the fore.
Delhi’s R. Saravanan provided good support on the violin. He brought out some delightful phrases while delineating the ragas Amirtavarshini and Shankarabharanam.
However, he should take a little more care while playing notes in the higher octave.
T.R. Rajamani, son and disciple of the late mridanga maestro Palakkad Mani Iyer, provided elegant and encouraging support throughout. His tani avartanam (mridanga solo) in Adi tala was captivating.
The concert was organised by Music Appreciation Centre, Delhi, at Sree Aishwarya Ganapathi Temple, Keshavapuram.
Some lecturers, when asked to give music concerts, seem to think that they are still inside the classroom and derive pleasure in converting the concert halls to lecture halls. Y. Rama Prabha, a music lecturer from Hyderabad, who gave a Carnatic vocal concert in neighbouring Noida recently, was no exception to this practice.
Almost before and after each song there were mini lectures, apart from announcing the ragas, composers and talas.
Rama Prabha could have altogether avoided or at least cut down these lectures to the bare minimum and could have spent some more time on the manodharma aspects (raga alapana, niraval and swaraprastaras).
Instead of scantily presenting a few phrases of the raga Shankarabharanam, before the song “Adi devudu”, she could have presented a detailed sketch of this raga.
She started off well with the Adi tala Sri raga varnam and Dikshitar’s “Mahaganapatim” in raga Nattai. She messed up as she proceeded.
The saving grace, however, was Dikshitar’s “Kamakshi kamakoti peetavasini” in raga Simhendra Madhyamam. Besides presenting a scintillating alap of this raga, Rama presented some creative niraval and swara formats.
While R. Saravanan provided violin support, V.P. Sudhir provided the mridangam support.
The concert was organised by Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam Charitable Trust, Noida and Noida Telugu Welfare Association as part of the 74th Jayanthi Celebrations of Jayendra Saraswati Sankaracharya Swamigal.
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