AN INTERVIEW AND A CONCERT

June 28, 2009 was eventful. We were called to participate in an interview in the morning, and had a concert to perform in the evening.

We reached Nageswara Rao Park, Mylapore at 7:30 in the morning for an outdoor video interview by Mr D Murali of The Hindu Business Line for his YouTube Channel Pitstop4performers. The topics on which we were interviewed ranged from music, archiving, corporate sponsorship, banking, economic recovery, medical transcription, etc. The session lasted almost 2 hours. The ambience of the Park was fantastic, helped by lovely weather that day. Come to think of it, we have been visiting various cities lately, some of those actually known for their wonderful weather, but this summer Chennai has actually been more liveable than most of the others! An excerpt from the interview is embedded above. For the entire interview please click below.


Interview for YouTube Channel - Pitstop4performers

About the concert in the evening, the mridangam accompaniment of Shri Mannargudi Easwaran and upapakkavadyam of Shri N Govindarajan was special. Playing for Naada Inbam at Raga Sudha Hall is always great, and we were really looking forward to this one because of who the accompanying artists were. Before the concert, we got a call the same day in the afternoon from someone requesting us to play Jambupathe Mampahi of Muthuswamy Dikshitar in Yamunakalyani. We were only happy to oblige. It is one of our own personal favourites too!

REMEMBERING THE ONE AND ONLY "GNB"

A couple of months back there was an article in the Times Of India Chennai edition describing GNB Sir as the first poster-boy of Carnatic Music. We would like to go ahead one more step and say that he is Carnatic Music's only poster-boy. Even for people like us who were very not fortunate to have even a glimpse of him, let alone be able to attend his live concert, the very mention of his name is an inspiration. We would like to thank The Indian Fine Arts Society and Shri M subramanian for having given us the opportunity to perform in the Centenary Celebrations of Sri GN Balasubramanian.

After our concert senior vidwan Shri Trichur Ramachandran sang. His ritigaula alapana was one to be cherished for a long time to come.

It was an occasion where we could meet members of GNB Sir's family and Prof MS Swaminathan, himself a true legend, who had been invited to be the chief guest.

Below is the link to the report that appeared in the Friday Review of The Hindu Chennai Edition.

Genius Remembered - Click Here

ALL FOR A GOOD CAUSE

Sanatana Dharma Foundation, based in Dallas, USA, sponsored an All Women Instrumental Ensemble to tour 14 cities in the USA for raising funds; their noble objective being Vidya Daanam - Empowerment Through Education. The team was led by Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi on the violin, followed by Mala Chandrasekhar on the flute, myself on the Veena, Rajna Swaminathan on the Mridangam and Bhagyalakshmi on the Morsing. The concerts were all very well received. A huge word of appreciation for the sponsors who left no stone unturned to make the tour a success. Hospitality for us artists was overwhelming. We had a wonderful time. Here are some pictures taken during the trip from Bhagya's camera.... and my favorites include the one with the three of us in a jewelry store, New York City by night, and a stunning view of the snow-capped Iranian mountain ranges from the Air India flight on our trip back home.

A PROUD PRIVILEGE

Nadha Kala Vipanchee Award and Nalli Felicitation


It was a proud privilege for us to receive the award "Nada Kala Vipanchee" from the hitherto unparalleled giant of a musician Dr.M.Balamuralikrishnaji, and a double honour to have played a concert in front of him. Shri TN Seshan, the ex-Chief Election Commissioner of India was also present as guest of honour on the occasion. The event was organized by the Vipanchee Trust, whose founder is Dr. Balamuralikrishna and director is Dr. Saraswathi. Dr. Sudharani Raghupathy was awarded the Acharya Kala Vipanchee. Senior vidwan Shri Anayampatti Ganesan (Gana Kala Vipanchee) and Sri Injikudi Subramanyam (Vadya Kala Vipanchee) were amongst the other awardees for this year. A felicitation function was held by Sri Nalli Kuppuswamy to honour all musicians who had received titles from various sabhas this year.

Featured in this blog post below is an excerpt from an interview of Dr. BMK by the news channel NDTV, expressing his views on "tradition".

THRIMOORTHY SANGEETHA SABHA, POZHICHALUR

A very relevant report in the Kutcheribuzz website titled "Season in the Suburbs" prompted us to write this post. Thrimoorthy Sangeetha Sabha in Pozhichalur, Chennai, hosts its music season in the middle of November every year. The Secretary of the Sabha Sri R Krishnamurthy and most of the members of the audience have about 40-50 years of Carnatic Music concert listening experience. They do not stir out until the concert is over. We played our concert for them on November 12th with Mannarkoil Balaji on the Mridangam and Adambakkam Shankar on the Ghatam. The RTP that we chose to play was in Bhairavi with the words "Thyagarajaya Guruguhaya Syamakrishnaya Namaste, Sangeetha Trimoorthyai Namaste," the theme in keeping with the name of the sabha. The members of the audience know their music, are involved with the proceedings and are very appreciative.

It is one of those venues which has an old world charm of its own. Sri Thanjavur Ramadoss who had played mridangam for us here on a previous occasion, remarked "enga vadyarukku intha madri kottagai potta edam-na romba pudikkum," indicating that the great Palghat Mani Iyer used to enjoy playing in surroundings like this. The rasikas here connect like long lost friends; after the concert is over, you can overhear comments like "antha kalathile namma ellam GNB-na appdiye surrender, illaya?" It is a great feeling to be in the midst of such a crowd.

VEENA NAVARATHRI 2008

The Veena Foundation and Indira Gandhi National Council for the Arts came together once again this year to celebrate the Veena Navarathri in Chennai with a series of Veena concerts for nine consecutive days. Shri Raghurama Ayyar is the person behind this veena movement so to speak, and his enthusiasm is driven by his passion for the instrument. Karthik Fine Arts, Narada Gana Sabha and Parthasarathy Swami Sabha supported this endeavour.

The theme of the festival was Guru-Shishya Parampara and gave us the opportunity to showcase our disciples. The link to the review of our concert that appeared in The Hindu is given below. One factual error in the report is that Revathy is mentioned as our disciple but she has not actually learnt from us; she is an alumnus of our alma mater Sri Guru Guha Gana Vidyalaya, Kolkata.

Link to the Review:
Showcase of Dikshitar - Click Here

JANA GANA MANA IN NEW YORK

Around mid-afternoon on the day of our concert in New York, a tornado alert was sounded. It was pouring heavily as we were making our way through the Lincoln tunnel to The Arch, an auditorium in busy Manhattan. We barely managed to survive the traffic and reached the venue just 5 minutes before the scheduled start. Rain stopped soon after that and the skies cleared. There were very few Indian faces in the audience; one of the Americans surprised us with his chaste Malayalam which we ended up answering in English as we did not know the language!! It was August 15th and we had planned to play Jana Gana Mana. The moment we announced that we would be playing the National Anthem of our country, everyone in the audience stood up with hands on their chest. It was wonderful. AR Balaskandan, local mridangam artist of the NYC area, and his wife Sonali, are doing excellent service to Carnatic Music by arranging Carnatic concerts in these parts. Our compliments to them.

THE SUNSHINE STATE BECKONS

Starting with a teaching camp in Tampa, the visit to the Sunshine State of Florida culminated in a concert at the Shiva Vishnu temple of South Florida in Miami. Dr. S. Ramakrishnan, the face of mridangam in Miami accompanied us. It was a sizeable crowd, almost full to capacity, and the arrangements perfect. Local carnatic artists, teachers, jazz musicians and a cello artist were amongst the audience. After the concert there was an impromptu interactive session where questions were asked about the electronic veena and we were happy to provide the answers.

GETTING MUS(EUM)ICAL IN MANHATTAN

A lovely weekend in New York, starting with a visit to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, walking around Central Park, watching an open-air Shakesparean play in Riverside Park, watching a French Vintage car rally and listening to a live music band in the Union Square Park. A perfectly happy and no blahs summery weekend, as they say in these parts!! About the live music and the play... the element of perfection in whatever was executed was noteworthy. And in the Museum, we wanted to see if the Veena had a place in the Musical Instruments section. Sure enough it did, and this warmed our hearts. There were two veenas, one from the 1940s with ivory inlay work, and the other a more recent one. There were also some miniature Tamburas with intricate painting on them, a Kinnari veena and a Rudra Veena, and a Mayuri Veena which had the kodam shaped like a peacock. A big thanks to our dear friend Vasudha for helping with taking the pictures.

IN SILICON VALLEY

We were in California last week for a concert for "Lotus" in Sunnyvale on June 21st, and a five-day workshop on Dikshitar kritis in Fremont from June 23rd through 27th. The response, warmth of the people and the enthusiasm was quite overwhelming. It was a pleasure to play with Sri Sriram Brahmanandam, a member of the illustrious Lalgudi family, and a senior mridangam artist in the Bay Area, . It was nice to interact with learned rasikas and some veena players of the area after the concert.