Sankranthi music festival
The annual Sankranthi Sangeetotsava, held last week under the aegis of the Dr R K Srikantan Trust, featured music concerts, lectures and even a vocal ensemble. Musicians paid rich tributes to Dr R K Srikantan, doyen of Karnatic Music.
Vishnu Venkatesh gave a Mandolin recital in the Sankranthi Music Festival on Wednesday. He is a disciple of Mandolin maestro U Srinivas and is continuing his training under U Rajesh. He has bagged few prizes including the "Prathibhakankshi" from the Sri Rama Seva Mandali and is also a student of M Tech at the R V College of Engineering.
Venkatesh presented a number of popular compositions of different composers. "Vinayaka" - the well known invocatory piece gave him a pleasant start and he rounded off with swara. A "Pancharatna Krithi" (Endaro Mahanubhavalu) helped bring a good musical atmosphere. It was followed by compositions in Pantuvarali, Reetigowla etc.
He crowned his concert with a Pallavi in Charukeshi. Good "Naada" was the main attraction throughout and though it was proof of his progress over the years, it has to improve - especially the alapana and nerval.
But the violinist (Apoorva Krishna) and the lone percussionist (M R Sainath) tried their best to lift the concert to a much higher level. On the other hand, a "Upa pakkavadya" would have added a little more pep to the young artiste's concert.
Promising vocalist
Bhargavi Venkataram hails from a reputed musician's family and is a disciple of T M Krishna, one among the most sought after vocalists. In her current concert for the Sri Raghavendra Seva Samithi, Sudhindranagara, she gave an exclusive concert of Haridasa compositions.
She opened the programme with "Jaya Janakeekantha". It appealed with the intensity of the outpouring ragama-like also. The highlight of the concert was "Ille Vaikunta" with alapana and swara vinyasa. She has a sweet voice, compositions are backed by good "Pattanthara" and renders with good feeling.
She sings with professional confidence and can reach great heights with more experience and higher training. Nerval has to be improved and more ugabhogas would have made an impact. Mandya Nagaraj and B S Prashanth accompanied on violin and mridanga, respectively.
Mechanical rendering
Vocalist Mohan Santhanam, who is not a new artiste to the Bengaluru audience, was accompanied by C N Tyagarajan on violin, A V Anand on mridanga and B N Chandramouli on khanjari. Mohan Santhanam chose compositions of Mysuru composers for his concert.
No doubt, Mysuru Sadashiva Rao, Veena Seshanna, Vasudevachar, Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, Muthaiah Bhagavathar - are reputed composers. But to make the concert more attractive the vocalist could have chosen infrequent or lesser known compositions and instead of selecting more than one krithi of the same composer, he could have chosen compositions of other (left out) composers!
"Maathe Malayadwaja" is a known Daru followed by "Prannamamyaham" in the raga Gowla. "Neekepudu" in Abhogi was a familiar composition of yester years! Though chitte swara of the "Jalandhara" is attractive, as rendered by him without fluency, Sri Ramadevi (Shankarabharana), Sripathe Premamuga (Gaanamurthe) and Vaanchatolu (Karnaranjini) - were the other compositions.
Mohana is a familiar raga, but he failed to capture the loveliness of that popular raga. To bring out the stateliness of the kruthies, he has to familiarise them and in total the concert was rather mechanical.
Pleasing and confident
Amruta Deshpande, who sang in the Purandara Utsav, originally hails from Dharwad and has now settled in Bengaluru. She had her initial training from Narayana Rao Majumdar and later from Pandit Vinayak Torvi. She is a masters degree holder in both music and philosophy.
In the concert, Amrutha De-shpande began with "Adigad-igondipe Purandara Guruve". While "Daasaraya Purandara" was of Jagannatha Dasaru, "Ramanama Bhajisidavage" was in Ragamalike and "Naray-ana Ninna Naamada" is equally popular in Karnatic music.
"Endendu Enna Manadinda" (Venkata Vittala) and "Enage Dorakada" (Purandara Dasa-ru) - were also evocative. She concluded with "Yaake Chinth-isuthiruve" in Bhairavi and she sang with her good voice and confidence. She was supported by Narasimha Kulakarni on Harmonium and Guru Sangappa Hugar on thabala.
The annual Sankranthi Sangeetotsava, held last week under the aegis of the Dr R K Srikantan Trust, featured music concerts, lectures and even a vocal ensemble. Musicians paid rich tributes to Dr R K Srikantan, doyen of Karnatic Music.
Vishnu Venkatesh gave a Mandolin recital in the Sankranthi Music Festival on Wednesday. He is a disciple of Mandolin maestro U Srinivas and is continuing his training under U Rajesh. He has bagged few prizes including the "Prathibhakankshi" from the Sri Rama Seva Mandali and is also a student of M Tech at the R V College of Engineering.
Venkatesh presented a number of popular compositions of different composers. "Vinayaka" - the well known invocatory piece gave him a pleasant start and he rounded off with swara. A "Pancharatna Krithi" (Endaro Mahanubhavalu) helped bring a good musical atmosphere. It was followed by compositions in Pantuvarali, Reetigowla etc.
He crowned his concert with a Pallavi in Charukeshi. Good "Naada" was the main attraction throughout and though it was proof of his progress over the years, it has to improve - especially the alapana and nerval.
But the violinist (Apoorva Krishna) and the lone percussionist (M R Sainath) tried their best to lift the concert to a much higher level. On the other hand, a "Upa pakkavadya" would have added a little more pep to the young artiste's concert.
Promising vocalist
Bhargavi Venkataram hails from a reputed musician's family and is a disciple of T M Krishna, one among the most sought after vocalists. In her current concert for the Sri Raghavendra Seva Samithi, Sudhindranagara, she gave an exclusive concert of Haridasa compositions.
She opened the programme with "Jaya Janakeekantha". It appealed with the intensity of the outpouring ragama-like also. The highlight of the concert was "Ille Vaikunta" with alapana and swara vinyasa. She has a sweet voice, compositions are backed by good "Pattanthara" and renders with good feeling.
She sings with professional confidence and can reach great heights with more experience and higher training. Nerval has to be improved and more ugabhogas would have made an impact. Mandya Nagaraj and B S Prashanth accompanied on violin and mridanga, respectively.
Mechanical rendering
Vocalist Mohan Santhanam, who is not a new artiste to the Bengaluru audience, was accompanied by C N Tyagarajan on violin, A V Anand on mridanga and B N Chandramouli on khanjari. Mohan Santhanam chose compositions of Mysuru composers for his concert.
No doubt, Mysuru Sadashiva Rao, Veena Seshanna, Vasudevachar, Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, Muthaiah Bhagavathar - are reputed composers. But to make the concert more attractive the vocalist could have chosen infrequent or lesser known compositions and instead of selecting more than one krithi of the same composer, he could have chosen compositions of other (left out) composers!
"Maathe Malayadwaja" is a known Daru followed by "Prannamamyaham" in the raga Gowla. "Neekepudu" in Abhogi was a familiar composition of yester years! Though chitte swara of the "Jalandhara" is attractive, as rendered by him without fluency, Sri Ramadevi (Shankarabharana), Sripathe Premamuga (Gaanamurthe) and Vaanchatolu (Karnaranjini) - were the other compositions.
Mohana is a familiar raga, but he failed to capture the loveliness of that popular raga. To bring out the stateliness of the kruthies, he has to familiarise them and in total the concert was rather mechanical.
Pleasing and confident
Amruta Deshpande, who sang in the Purandara Utsav, originally hails from Dharwad and has now settled in Bengaluru. She had her initial training from Narayana Rao Majumdar and later from Pandit Vinayak Torvi. She is a masters degree holder in both music and philosophy.
In the concert, Amrutha De-shpande began with "Adigad-igondipe Purandara Guruve". While "Daasaraya Purandara" was of Jagannatha Dasaru, "Ramanama Bhajisidavage" was in Ragamalike and "Naray-ana Ninna Naamada" is equally popular in Karnatic music.
"Endendu Enna Manadinda" (Venkata Vittala) and "Enage Dorakada" (Purandara Dasa-ru) - were also evocative. She concluded with "Yaake Chinth-isuthiruve" in Bhairavi and she sang with her good voice and confidence. She was supported by Narasimha Kulakarni on Harmonium and Guru Sangappa Hugar on thabala.