Notes straight from the heart

Emotional Rendition

The strains of a violin can express various emotions perfectly — and one could see this clearly at the ‘Academy of Music Chowdiah Awards’ and ‘K K Murthy Memorial Music Festival 2012’, held at Chowdiah Memorial Hall recently.

While the highlight of the evening was the violin concert by A Kanyakumari and 25 violinists, there were many other events like a vocal solo, a splendid dance performance, the release of a souvenir and the inauguration of ‘MEDHA’, a museum of musical instruments, that were conducted as part of the inauguration ceremony.

As the night moved forward and the stage was set up for the artistes, the audience was eagerly waiting for the spellbinding performance that was to follow. Kanyakumari, renowned for her challenging feats and amazing performances both as a soloist and accompanied by other artistes, played familiar compositions and special renditions.

She was accompanied by Patri Satish Kumar on mridangam, Rajendra Nakod on tabla and B Rajashekar on morsing as well as other violinists. The evening’s performance consisted of several pieces like ata tala varnam and swara raga sudha. All the pieces were inspirational and the familiar ones had immense appeal.The main item of the evening, in honour of the golden jubilee celebrations of the Academy of Music, was the piece jagadhadharna — in which Kanyakumari played ragamalika swaras in its 50th ragam, the namanarayani ragam. This piece also included solos lasting for 15 minutes on the mridangam and the tabla in the end.

The audience broke into thunderous applause once the last beat was struck. Commenting about the evening, Kanyakumari says, “I’ve performed many times in Bangalore, as a soloist and in accompaniment. I always try to keep my programmes interesting by being innovative and I see that the response was appreciative.”Karthika Ramakrishna, a music teacher, opines, “From the small performances to the main event, everything was great. To be able to see Kanyakumari perform was a blessing — especially on a stage like this, consisting of so many artistes.”

A music connoisseur in the audience, Karnakaswamy Gopinath, adds, “The violin is known to be one of the most human instruments and to be part of a night like this — even if just as an audience member — is sheer luck. I have been to Kanyakumari’s performances before and I’m glad I could come again.”