December 26, 2024

A student’s experience from a Carnatic Concert

--------------------------    Abirami Srivatsan

 It was Monday, December 16th of 2024, the first day of Margazhi. The concert was at Krishna Gana Sabha at 4 pm by vidushis Nisha Rajagopalan and Amritha Murali. It was a brilliant concert, to say the least!

Every concert has a set synopsis namely the concert begins with a varnam and ends with a thukkada. Here too, Nisha and Amritha started with a varnam, a navaragamalika (a set of 9 ragas that begins with Kedaram and has Shankarabaranam, Kalyani, Begada, Kambhoji, Yadukula Kambhoji, Bilahari, Mohanam, and Sri) composed by Patnam Subrahmanya Iyer, known for his brilliant composition of many varnams. 

Moving further, a composition of  Shyama Shastri "Shankari Shankuru Chandramukhi" in the ragam Saveri and in Thishra Nadai was brought out very well and the neraval in the line "Shyama Krishna Sodari Shyamale Satodari" was amazing

The sub-main of the concert was Begada and a composition of Ramaswamy Sivan in Mishra chapu. The neraval was sung in the line "Kadaikaan Vaithennai Alamma," the Pallavi of the composition. Begada is a rakthi raga which needs many more hours of practice to present well in a concert and the singers did that well.

Before moving to the main, a short composition of Muthuswami Dikshithar in the raga Hamirkalyani ,"Parimala Ranganatham Bhajeham" following a viruttham was presented beautifully. 

The main of the day was Bhairavi and the composition is the magnum opus composition of Saint Thyagarajaswami - "Raksha pettare". The Neraval was brought beautifully in the line “Sangitapriya Thyagaraja” which is the charanam. 

A short RTP in the ragam Vakulabharanam was sung next. The Pallavi lines were “Kamala Vakula Maaladi Dharanam Yaadava Kulaabharanam Krishnam Kalaye.” This Pallavi was rendered in Thriputa jamba thalam. The ragamalika swarams were from the ragas like Umabharanam, Natabharanam, and Shankarabaranam. The notable fact is that the Pallavi is composed by another brilliant vidwan R K Shriramkumar. 

The concert ended with a composition of Purandaradasa in the raga Jaunpuri, “Hari Chitta Satya” and “Nirguna Niramaya” in the raga Yamankalyani followed by a viruttham from Thirumurai “Ulagelam Unarndu Odar Kariyavan.” The Mangalam was a composition of Bhadrachala Ramadas - “Ramachandraya Janaka Rajaja Manoharaya.” Vidwans Arjun Ganesh and Anirudh Athreya played very well throughout the concert. R K Shriramkumar’s magic in the RTP and Begada were the highlight of the concert.

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