December Music Season....MARGAZHI: MONTH OF MUSIC

Picture: Padmasri Smt. Sudha Ragunathan accompanied by P.Satish Kumar on the Mridangam, B.Raghavendra Roa on the violin, R.Raman on the morsing and Narayanan on the Tambura. Venue: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Date: 7th December 2006.

It is too late to talk about December season. One of the most awaited musical extravaganza in Chennai. I intended to publish this immediately after the season, but few things kept me preoccupied. Better late than never, i thought it should be here before December 2007 :)

Recently few days back I read a report in a leading newspaper that the Government along with the tourism department is planning to be an active partner. This is definitely a good sign for all the rasikas and the season would hopefully be more organised.Come December and the city gears itself for more than thousand concerts. This year was no different with just few more sabhas organising their festivals. But with so many to choose does the listener get to listen to some quality music. There were some really good performances by leading artists. However at the end of the day it’s the number that matters the most. It’s more rewarding to say that one has given 20 concerts rather six or seven quality concerts. That doesn’t take away the credit from the artist who in spite of their frantic schedule tried to give their best shot, but physically it is a daunting task to give 20 concerts in a month.

It was a learning experience for me as a student of music. The Academy sessions in the morning were worth attending. If afternoon slots attract elderly audience, lec-dems in most of the sabhas has poor attendance. Season to me has always been listening to new artists and the veterans. Simple reason it’s a combination that might offer variety. Stalwarts like Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, R.K.Srikantan gave fabulous performances. Srikantan’s concert at the Music Academy is still afresh in my mind. Upcoming artist like Prasanna Venkatraman, Bhavadharini, and K.Gayatri did put up a good show.Most of the evening concerts attracted good crowds and Aruna Sairam, Sudha Ragunathan, T.M.Krishna were the crowd pullers. To my surprise Aruna Sairam’s concert tickets were sold out a day before the concert. At Mylapore Fine Arts, there were listeners who were standing on the road to listen to her concerts. If they were the crowd pullers then few concerts allowed space for kids to play, as the auditorium was almost empty. Probably a few known friends of the musicians attended that concert.

The next set of performers who inspired me included O.S.Thigarajan, T.V.Sankaranarayan, and T.N.Seshagopalan. Their performances had the right balance of ragas and krithis in their concert. The trend is really bad as far as instrument is concerned. The number of rasikas attending it is just dwindling. Though we had Lalgudi duo, E.Gayatri, N.Ramani (whose concert of the academy would be my best pick) attract some sizable number of music lovers. The organisers couldn’t explain the reasons for the same.Though the city boasts itself for organising one of the unique festivals, it lacks the infrastructure. Most of the sabhas have bad acoustics. One found artist continuously signalling for feedback. But that doesn’t make big difference. It was too jarring and the aesthetics of music was lost. When corporate sponsorships are coming in, the authorities could probably deal with this problem. It would be a blessing for both musicians and rasikas.

Season is not just about concerts, its also about interesting cuisines. Canteens came up with new interesting recipes. Pattum and suvaiyum is the hallmark of Chennai Music Festival. Though one can go talk endlessly about Season, one has to accept that it is a musical feast to rasikas. Coming back to where I began, season 2006 had some fascinating performances and hope next year the organisers conduct it on a much larger scale with the government. It would definitely give a boost to Carnatic Music and December festival could be on par with global festival conducted in Edinburgh.

Obsession.....

Off late my obsession to listen to yesteryear musicians has helped me unearth some beautiful compositions. I have heard them rendered by the musicians like Sudha Ragunathan, Sanjay Subramanium and T.M.Krishna and many more. But i believe there is something that makes it much better when MLV, Semmangudi or Santhanam render it. Whether it is Dakshinamurthe by Semmangudi, Evarimata by MLV or Charukesi varnam by Santhanam. The way they have explored the ragas encourages students like me to listen more and analyse music. The experience is inexplicable. I do not want to take the effort that musician's like Sudha or any other artist have put in while singing the same krithi. It sounds good even when they sing. By the way let not anybody mistake me for comparing the artist. Its a thought that i preferred to pen it here and my experience after listening to some brilliant music rendered by these masters :)
Click here for downloading Evarimata,Charukesi (You can download the entire concert)

The Grandeur of Music
I close my eyes to feel it
Many say it can't be felt
But i can see it
The sound waves traverse through my nerves
I am mocked at for experiencing it all along
But that doesn't stop me from exploring

It is an addiction
Hours have gone by but feels like few seconds
Days and years have gone by
But I refuse to let you go
The bond gets stronger everyday
Lost myself on the way
But you show me my way
Much sweeter than before
Found....
The grandeur of music

THE LOGIC BEHIND....

As a kid am sure we would have asked some thousand questions to our parents about moon, sun and the stars. For grandmothers and mothers moon is the only source who could help them while feed their kid. The innocent kid dreams of space being a his home and a palatial house there. As day passes he questions the same. What is gravitation or other stuff in space. Forgive me guys am not too good with astrophysics, or for that matter even physics. Cell biology fascinated me more than wires or test tubes. Science textbooks were there is dry meaningless full of definitions. It made no sense. I never figured how could people talk about electrons when they cant even see it. So biology seemed more interesting, as it dealt living organisms. But over the years it made more sense when i read science fictions. Blah!!! isn't it.

This is more important to me as a journalist as we don't have a choice over our beat. However as a student of journalism i still felt science writing was really tough. And the field lacks science journalists who could just explain in simple terms what the experiment was all about. Take for an instance i am sure hardly anyone would have heard about ice cube experiment conducted in south pole by scientist. Yesterday we got an oppurtunity to talk to Sven Lidstrom and Karthik Soundarapandian, who are winterovers in south pole. Wintering over is a tough task. Imagine living in darkness for nearly six months and experiment. These guys are working on neutrinos, minute particle which are created due to radioactive decay in the sun. They are extremely tough to detect. One wonders why on earth am i talking about two different fields which are no even remotely related. This was just to highlight the fact that I am atleast able to explain what neutrino after a fascinating class with Dr. Vijaya Swaminath, who was the first Indian to be on the south pole. Her series have enlightened us writers.

After a session with Sven and Karthik, we could visualise what life is in South Pole. During the questioning hour, my classmates asked whether they had anything called lunch time. Guys it makes sense to ask such questions. Psychologically it is tought to accept and live in such conditions. To be a winterover they had to undergo series psychological tests. But as sven said passion supercedes everything and once you enjoy what you do nothing can stop you. Yesterday when we spoke to them the temperature was -55 degrees. We in chennai are cribbing about the heat and they about the cold wind. Two extremes in the world. Both sven and karthik are planning to stay there till Jan 2008. But they do socialise and have get togethers and play basket ball. I wonder how. It makes more sense to play ice hockey. As the session progressed we almost felt as we were experiencing the wind of ice cube experiments. For a naive person like me who hardly understood the basics of newton laws and for whom einstein made no sense, neutrino astro physics made more sense. All beacuse of simple writing. Final conclusion science is fascinating, its never too late to pursue anything in life. For more information: Ice cube ww.nsf.gov,www.usap.gov, www.polar.org

CONCERT AT IT'S BEST: NOT AMONG CONNOISSEURS
Its said that when you are in a company of kids you tend to behave them. I ain't aware of who framed this hypothesis or has it to do something with psychology. Not that i am too concerned about it either. By now am sure many who have read my blog would have come to a conclusion that i am a music freak especially classical carnatic music. All along i have spoken a lot about musicians and how they influenced me. But the enthusiasm and zeal i saw amongst kids in yesterday's concert at Mylapore forced me to look beyond the grammar of music. SudhaRagunathan performed at the Srinivasa Perumal temple to a packed audience. Nothing unusal about it. She has this great fan following, rare for a carnatic musician. I have heard MS amma had such in those days. Not drifting, there were these enthusiastic kids, absolutely not bothered about anything in this world. They made sure that the artist sang what they had requested. The striking point was they were smart enough to request only the songs they knew. I am sure all of them would have just started their music classes and would have may be learnt a couple of varnams. I could just smile at them and appreciate their eagerness. At some point i thought they were trying to disturb the flow of the concert, but then realised for them it was unique opportunity to sing along with the main artist. I cant remember my early days when i attended concerts with my grandfather and parents. It was also that my concert experience was more in a closed environment where everything could be controlled and the performance at shanmukhananda was all serious affair. Coming back to yesterday's performance, Sudha aptly chose songs on lord venkateswara and Krishna, but these kids couldn't control their emotions when she sang brahamamokate, her master piece and kurai onrum illai. At a point the artists on dias couldn't stop laughing, and sudha herself gestured the kids to sing with her. This encouraged them to sing even more louder and prove themselves. At this juncture I was left speechless. At this juncture one year old baby cried to be on stage with her. Her parents were unable to pacify her and she won in the end. I am sure for an artist this counts more than awards and accolades or even getting good reviews from critics. I am not downplaying on them, but satisfying the masses is more difficult that satisfying the classes. For me it was a unique experience, I enjoyed the soul stirring music and this made me realise that everytime its not about grammar. The ignorant smile on the faces of these kids said more than the music that was rendered. i just hope i could just press the reqind button in my life and enjoy with these kids. As you learn more, you tend to complicate more.