Music & dance reviews

Successful conference

The eagerly awaited annual music conference of the Bangalore Gayana Samaja was held last week with not only music concerts but also academic sessions.

K S Gopalakrishnan, who gave a flute recital in the conference, is a reputed flautist of the country. He paid rich tributes to different composers through a choice of their compositions – Tyagaraja, Shyama Sastry, Purandara Dasaru – and others.

The crowning glory of the concert was a soulful Madhyamavati raga. The jaunty treatment  went straight to the hearts of the audience, who heard with reverence and rapt attention.

Touching the pivotal swaras, he lent depth and dimension to the raga, shining with its scintillating swara prasthara. Reetigowla in a majestic “Vilambakaala”, was also delightful.

Even in the devotionals like “Tunga Teera Viharam”, he brought out the grandeur of the raga impactfully. Tail enders like – Bhogendra shayinam, Visweswar darushan – also pleased the listeners. It was soulful, melodious, without any gimmicks or biligree work.
M A Krishnaswamy’s violin merged with the mood of the flautist while Mannargudi Easwaran (mridanga) kept pace admirably and M A Krishnamurthy was in charge of ghata.

Infrequent raga

Among the young musicians Sikkil Gurucharan has carved a niche for himself as a talented vocalist worth watching. The highlight of his programme was the delineation of that grand mode ‘Ranjani’ in all its glory and sang with good feeling. The Pallavi was well knit in Thisra Triputa Tala.

Earlier, he presented three fine compositions of Tyagaraja in different ragas - Alakalalla, Sriramapadama and Dasharathe. The Kokilapriya is not a frequently heard raga, which was a welcome change from the routine ones and further enhanced the musical stature of Gurucharan. His voice has wide appeal and charmed the audience. V V Ravi (violin), Tumkur Ravishankar (mridanga) and T B Sashi Sankar (ghata) lent whole hearted support.

Impressive dance

Radhika Prabhu, who gave a Bharathanatya recital last week at ADA Ranga Mandira, is a graduate in Fine Arts (Chitrakala Parishat), with painting as a special subject. She had good grounding under Shubha Dhananjay and is continuing training now in the Rasika Academy.

It was an occasion to gauge her progress after her debut held two years back. It goes to her credit that after the “Ranga Pravesha” with a certain flair to her movements emphasized by firm ‘Thattu-Mettu’ and precision in line.

The invocatory Pushpanjali and the Sloka “Adithya Hridayam’ revealed her good training in aspects of Laya and subtle movements. After the “Sriman-Narayana” (Annamachar-Bowli raga) the Charukeshi Varna “Innum en mana” (Lalgudi Jayaraman) was also disposed of with aplomb.

The popular krithi “Neerajasama” with Gathibheda was one of restrained confidence, accounting for some pleasing movements.

The Devaranama (Baro Krishnaiah – Kanaka Dasaru) and Thillana (Sindhu bhairavi – Dwaraki Krishnaswamy) were also pleasing. But the selection was mostly on Krishna and ‘Bhakthi’ only! She enjoys her dancing.

But Radhika has to graduate in the aspect of displaying the various moods. She is young and deeply interested and is not difficult to improve to reach great heights. Hence her career is worth watching. Srivathsa’s vocal and Guru Kiran Subramanya’s Natuvanga were inspiring to the dancer while Sri Hari (Mridanga), Dr Nataraj Murthy (violin), Mahesh (flute) and Shadakshari (compering) – gave good support.