Music & dance reviews

Touch of class

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Ganjam’ the well known jewellers, conduct a music festival called ‘Flights of Fantasy’ and connoisseurs eagerly look forward to hear music of their favourite artistes, every year. This year music festival was held at the Chowdaiah Memorial Hall, last week, with both vocal and instrumental concerts and public response was also encouraging.

Lalgudi G J R Krishnan and Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, gave the inaugural concert of the festival on Thursday evening. A varna of Lalgudi Jayaraman gave them a flying start. It was in the Nalinakantha, evocative raga and the invocatory song of Purandara Dasaru was in Sourashtra Raga.  The lilting melody of Reethigowla was presented through a composition of Shyama Sastry. The duo freshening up with the strains of a whole some Bilahari, gave a soulful picture of the Tyagaraja's composition.
They chose thodi for a detailed airing, which was more reposeful.

There was a touch of class in every thing, with the stamp of ‘Lalgudi Baani’ throughout. With their practiced ease and control over the instruments, they pleased the gathering. Of course the piece de resistance of the concert was a Pallavi ‘Devi Brova Samaya’. For that they chose raga Nasikabhushani, with a cascading variety of ‘Sangathies’.

The impact was further enhanced by sweet swaras in ragamalika. Two devaranamas - ‘Srikantha enagistu’ and ‘Baro Krishnaiah’ and a Thillana in Madhuvanthi - also pleased the audience.
The percussion duo - Ramesh (Mridanga) and Ullur Giridhar Udupa (Ghata) - accompanied with good understanding.

Reassuring recital

The Malleswaram Sangeeth Sabha presented a vocal concert of Balasubramanya Sharma, at the Ananya Sabhangana, last week. Balasubramanya hails from a artistes family. He took his initial lessons from his father Kaipu Lakshminarasimha Sastry and continued with S Seshagiri Rao. He is taking advance training under Salem P Sundareshan, veteran artiste. A science graduate Sharma, has completed the proficiency examination in music and has performed in many sabhas of the country and abroad also like USA, France, Germany and UK, and is also a recipient of several prize and awards.

Sharma's Shanmukha Priya created a fine musical atmosphere. Meandering over all the salient swaras, the Pallavi emerged on a steady gait. Earlier ‘Thereteeyakarada’ was also appealing and ‘Nee Bhajanagana’ was sung neatly. Devotionals like ‘Ma madhava’ attracted with graceful delineation. In total it was a reassuring recital by Balasubramanya sharma. T T Srinivasan, B Dhruvaraj and B R Ravi Kumar supported on violin, mridanga and ghata, respectively.