December season 2010

This is the summary of the concerts i attended and i would like to discuss some of them in detail later
TNS-1
I started the december season listening to an excellent concert from the great T N Seshagopalan. This was the vaikunta ekadesi conecrt in Mudhra assisted by Shri.M.Chandrashekaran and Trichur Narendran.
An excellent Pantuvarali with the kamba ramayana song "Kai vannam angu kanden" and the great nayaki kriti "Ranganayakam" set the tone for the concert. TNS sang a great nayaki-the best part being the non-repetitiveness of the sangatis and his exploration of the phrases around dha-ni. Ofcourse he sang one of his best renditions of brindavan saranga for an RTP.

Malladi

I attended a live concert of Malladi Brothers in Music Academy prior to TNS's concert. I started listening with the karaharapiya main piece "Satatham Thavaka". The karaharapriya ragam sung that day was exemplary and encompassed all the known phrases and some innovative phrases.
Saveri was good but for a RTP it was quite less possibly due to lack of time

TNS at Music Academy

This concert started off with a low key with him warming his voice-a vachaspathi with some great phrases flowed with the kriti "ennadi nee" (of patnam subramania iyer); the best was though reserved for the Bhairavi raga anad the kriti "Upacharamu".

Somehow always i had a feeling though TNS sings some great ragams and compositions in Music academy, the overall mood there does not shine like in MFA or Mudhra or the like (even though the MA auditorium is much better acoustically and the overall ambience)

Bharat Sundar at MA

An good musician to watch out for- he sang a vibrant "amba paradevathe (rudrapriya)" with swarams and an excellent Varali for seshachala nayakam.

Prasanna Venkatraman at MA

Quite a good concert content wise-a very good kambodhi ragam-however prasanna needs to focus on how he uses his voice - it produces a lot of unmusical sounds that rob the musicality of the ragam he sings (this i have observed from his previous concerts also)

Abhishek Raghuram at NGS

An Excellent Lathangi from Abhishek with sme unique panchama varja prayogams and a beautifully rendered Kriti.

TNS-U Srinivas-Zakir and Guruvayur Dorai

A much anticipated concept - more or less satisfied the listeners expectation. Ofcourse TNS's voice had problems initially-however with the onset of kalyani ragam you could hear him at his best (though again his voice became sore post this piece). His prayogams focussing on pa-dha-ni and the nagaswaram pidis were amazing.

Vijay Siva's lec dem and Dr R S Jeyalakshmi's Lec dem - to follow