OS Arun at Swati Sangeethotsavam

The major event in Trivandrum at the start of the New Year is the Swathi Sangeethotsavam at Kuthira Maalika. As we were travelling, we missed most of the kutcheris except on the last day . We could get a flavour of OS Arun towards the end of his kutcheri on the 13th of January.I also missed the Nishagandhi events. Hope I can make up after I return from the US. 

Kathak by Rani Khanam

Digital duo. A viewer snapping Kathak performance with his phone camera. 

 Rani Khanam performing. The evening performance was preceded by her lecture demonstration of "Improvisation aspects of Kathak -Laya and Bhav" in the morning

Manipuri dance by Suman Sarawgi and party at Mudra Festival

Suman Sarawgi and troupe at Mudra festival, Vylopilli bhavan, Trivandrum

Ms.Sarawgi will followup her performance on Monday with a lecdem on Tuesday on 'Tracing the origin of Manipuri dance- one of the oldest as well as a living tradition of India",  Pity I will miss it.

Odissi

Aloka Kanungo performs Odissi at the Mudra festival in Vylopilli Bhavan. Aloka has trained under Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, Raghunath Dutt and Mayadhar rout. She runs Shinjin Nrityalaya

Mohiniyattam at Vylopilli

Kalamandalam Sarawathi (not in the picture), and her disciples performed Mohiniyattam at he Vylopilli Samskriti Bhavan Koothambalam as part of the Mudra dance festival.

Keechakavadham Kathakali

Keechakavadham Part I, Kathakali at Margi Theatre, Fort, Thiruvananthapuram

Swathi Sangeethotsawam 2013 at Kuthira maalika

The generally sleepy Kuthira maalika comes alive every January with the Swathi Sangeethotsavam.- a week long festival of concerts. It was inaugurated on Friday, the 4th January this year  with a concert by Sanjay Subramanyan.

On 5th January, Price Rama Varma was the artiste. Here are some pictures of the concert and the venue.

This being the Bicentenary of Maharaja Swati Thirunal, it is a 10 day festival from 4th January to 13th January, instead of the usual 7 days. The detailed programme is given below: (courtesy: kuthiramalika info)

Swathi Sangeethotsavam January 4th to 13th ,2013

              At Kuthiramalika Palace , East Fort , Trivandrum

 

4-1-2013                   Sri Sanjay Subrahmanyan              -    Vocal                     

Friday                       Sri S.Varadarajan                          -    Violin

6pm to 9pm              Sri S.J.Arjun Ganesh                     -    Mridangam

                                Udupi Sri Srikanth                         -    Kanjira

                                Dr S.Karthick                                -    Ghatam

                              

 

5-1-2013                   Prince Rama Varma                      -     Vocal

Saturday                   Sri S.Varadarajan                          -     Violin

6pm to 9pm              Sri B.Harikumar                            -     Mridangam

                                Dr S.Karthick                                -     Ghatam

 

 

6-1-2013                   Master Siddharth                            -     Vocal         

Sunday                     Sri Sampath                                   -      Violin

5 to 6:30pm              Dr G.Babu                                     -      Mridangam

 

6:30pm                     Sri J.B Sruthisagar                         -      Flute

                                Sri Sampath                                  -      Violin

                                Sri N.C.Bharadwaj                        -     Mridangam

                                Nerkunam Sri Shankar                   -     Kanjira

                                Sri Hariharasubramaniam               -     Ghatam

 

 

7-1-2013                   Ms Amrutha Venkatesh                 -     Vocal               

Monday                    Avaneeswaram Sri S.R.Vinu         -     Violin 

6pm to 9pm              Dr G.Babu                                   -    Mridangam

                                Perukavu Sri P.L.Sudheer             -    Ghatam

                                                                                          

 

8-1-2013                   Sikkil Sri Gurucharan                     -    Vocal

Tuesday                   Sri V.Sanjeev                                 -    Violin

6pm to 9 pm            Poongulam Sri Subramaniam          -    Mridangam

                               Manjoor Sri Unnikrishnan               -    Ghatam          

 

 

9-1-2013                 Ramakrishnan Murthy                     -    Vocal

Wednesday            Avaneeswaram Sri S.R.Vinu            -    Violin

6pm to 9pm            Palghat Sri Maheshkumar                -    Mridangam

                              Perukavu Sri P.L.Sudheer               -    Ghatam

 

 

 

10-1-2013                Smt Ranjini Guruprasad                 -    Vocal

Thursday                 Sri R.K Sriramkumar                     -    Violin

6pm to 9pm             Sri B.Ganapathyraman                  -    Mridangam

                               Udupi Sri Sridhar                          -    Ghatam

11-1-2013                 Sri Debapriya Adhikary                 -    Hindustani Vocal

Friday                      Sri Samanwaya Sarkar                   -    Sitar     

6pm to 9pm              Sri Nitin Mitta                               -    Tabla                                                               

 

 

12-1-2013                 Sri Vighnesh Eashwar                   -    Vocal

Saturday                   Sri S.R.Mahadev Sarma               -    Violin

6pm to 9pm              Sri K.V Prasad                             -    Mridangam

                                Udupi Sri Srikanth                        -    Kanjira

                                Sri Guruprasad                             -    Ghatam

                               

 

13-1-2013                 Sri O.S. Arun                                -    Vocal

Sunday                    M.R.Gopinath                                -    Violin

6pm to 9pm             Sri J.Vaidhyanathan                        -    Mridangam

                               Dr S.Karthick                                 -    Ghatam

                               Sri Ganapathi                                 -    Tabla    

Manipuri dance at Nishagandhi

Manipuri Nata Sankeerthana by the troupe of Baisali Sarkar performing at Nishagandhi Festival, Trivandrum 

''Adharam Madhuram, Vadanam Madhuram...", the beauty of Krishna. Odissi dance by Orissa Dance Academy led by Ms. Aruna Mohanty.

Nangiar Koothu at Vyloppilli Samskriti Bhavan

The koothambalam shaped auditorium at Vyloppilli Samskriti Bhavan regularly hosts several cultural events. The event on last Friday (21st May) was solo Nangyarkoothu performance by the accomplished Smt.Kalamandalam Sindhu - Sreekrishnacharitham -Govardhanodharanam.  She was accompanied by Margi Ramanunni, Sajikumar on Mizhavu, Kalamandalam Mohanan on Thimila and Kumari Amritha on thalam.

Sri Swati Tirunal Jayanthi

The 197th Swathi Thirunal Jayanthy and 68th Anniversary of Sri Swati Tirunal Sangita Sabha is being held between 28th April and 9th May, 2010 at the Karthika Thirunal Theatre, East Fort, Trivandrum.

Following is schedule of some of the performers.

28th April: Bombay Sisters

29th April: Sreevalsan Menon

2nd May : Rudrapattanam Brothers

4th May: Neyveli Santhanagoplan

5th May : Dr.Ranganath Sharma

7th May: Madurai GS Mani

9th May: TV Gopalakrishnan

I was able to attend the concert of Srivalsan Menon on 29th.

Here is a partial list of songs from his concert.

Jaya jaya padmanabha : Sarasangi

Paripaalayam - Reeti gowla

Paalayamam -Khamas

Anjaneyane -Saaveri

Paramapurusha - Vasantha

RTP- Kaapi , (Misra chaapu)

(sorry, no pictures, as I had not taken my camera. Let me see if the phone cam picture is good enough to post.)

Odissi by Nrityagram

From Odissi

The Soorya Festival moved into the penultimate module - Odissi Festival, which opened with a brilliant performance by Nrityagram, Bengaluru.
The piece de resistance was of course, the 'Ardhanareeswara'.

It was held at the Municipal 'Auditorium' . This was just a hall with a stage and some chairs thrown in. The ambience didn't do justice to the exquisite performance by the troupe. The loud cricket commentary from a TV in the next room and a sputtering power supply did not help either. This event was originally scheduled to be held at the Music College, Thycaud, which was a much viewer-friendly venue. Wonder why Soorya changed to this venue!

Hanuman in Lanka, Kathakali

The kathakali festival of Soorya continues at the Swathi Thirunal Music College. The above image shows the confrontation between Ravana and Hanuman after his visit to Ashoka vanam and before Lanka dahanam. The percussion ensemble of Maddalam, Chenda etc are seen in the background.

Parassala Ponnamma

Parassala Ponnamma   sings as part of the Sadhana programme at the Music College. The octogenarian, sitting in a chair effortlessly performed.I was however, informed that her voice was no longer what it used to be.
She was accompanied by Dr. Moorthy, HOD of the Department of Violin and prof. Balasubramoniam HOD of the Dept. of Mridangam, Sri Swati Thirunal College of Music.

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures