Vylopilli again

Saturday, the day after the Independence day, was a rather quite day for me. After attending to some bank work in the morning and  a short afternoon nap, I was at a loose end in the evening. On browsing through the Metro Plus of The Hindu, I was happy to see that the Bharat Bhavan at Thycaud had a kathak performance at 6-30. On reaching the Bhavan at 6-30 I found the place deserted and locked up. The Hindu had goofed up. The program was two days earlier according the banner on the site. Disappointed, I moved on to Vylopilli Samskriti Bhavan, not knowing what to expect there. The program there was a Carnatic kutchery  by a young artiste from Ernakulam, Sreenath Nambudiri. Mr Nambudiri holds a lot of promise but has a long way to go. It was a pity that there were only about 10 people in the audience!. 

OS Arun at Swathi Sangeethotsavam

On the last day of Swati Sangeethotsav, OS Arun regaled the audience with his unique style. here he is singing "Shyama Mohana" 

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.)

Nadaswaram Maestroes

From Drop Box

A function was organised at the Mascot Hotel to launch a website on the legendary Ambalapuzha brothers. (www.ambalapuzhabrothers.org). State Education Minister, MA Baby, Kavalam Narayana Panicker, Nedumudi Venu and other dignitaries were present. The function was followed by Nagaswaram recital by Thiruvizha Jayashankar.

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

Held 'Captive' in Jalsa Ghar

The 'Jalsa Ghar' module of Soorya Festival was held last year in the Department of Music. The venue and arrangements drew flak from the audience as well as the performers. So this year I was happy that it was held in the YMCA auditorium which once housed the British Council Library.

The event on Friday was Hindustani Sangeeth by Manjari, a well known Kerala based singer. Though the hall was air-conditioned, the seating was cramped with plastic chairs normally found in tea shops. With usual restrictions of of entry and exit, a la chamber music, it was rather suffocating especially for senior citizens.

The event, like most Soorya events, started on the dot at 6-45 p.m. Manjari began with the raag, Miya ka Todi. She described it as a morning raaga. As there aren't many opportunities for morning concerts she took this up at this event, she explained. Her rendition of this raaga for almost 45 minutes, appeared to non- connoisseurs like me, as 'mourning raaga' rather than a morning raaga.

She then went to to a couple of melancholy ghazals, but had the stage presence to warm up to some popular and racy numbers including some in Malayalam and ending with the ever popular 'Dumadum Mast laandhar' which had the audience clapping and foot tapping.

From Kathak

Once that ended at about 9 p.m, people rushed to the exits. The senior citizens to the wash rooms and the younger ones to their cuppa's or cell phones.

For the audience, which included a former Chief Secretary, representing YMCA, it was a two-and-a-half hour  'captivating' experience.