Sunday, November 11, 2018
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Shirdi Sai Parivaar
1221 California Circle, Milpitas, CA 95035

Event Highlight

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Performers: Adithya Narayanan (student of Smt Kasthuri Shivakumar)
Amirtha Srinivasan (student of Sri Shreyas Narayanun)
Arjun Bharat (student of Smt Nandini Ramamurthi)
Sahana Kumar (student of Smt Geeta Ravi)
Sahas Ramesh Violin solo (student of Sri Vittal Ramamurthy)
Shashank Mahesh (student of Sri Ashok Subramaniam)
Shashvath Iyer (student of Sri Paduka Academy)
Shriya Krishnan (student of Sri Shivakumar Bhat)
Sumanth Mahalingam (student of Sri Paduka Academy)
Vivrd Prasanna (student of Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan)
String accompanists: Aditya Satyadeep (student of Smt Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi)
Aishwarya Anand (student of Smt Anuradha Sridhar)
Aparna Ganapathi Basavapatna (student of Smt Sandhya Srinath)
Apurvaa Anand (student of Smt Anuradha Sridhar)
Mythri Sekar (student of Sri Saravanapriyan Sriraman)
Prahlad Saravanapriyan(student of Sri Saravanapriyan Sriraman)
Shreya Virunchipuram(student of Sri Saravanapriyan Sriraman)
Tejas Bharadwaj (student of Sri B V Raghavendra Rao)
Urmika Balaji (student of Vid. Kanyakumari)
Mrudangam accompanists: Akshay suresh (student of Sri Gopi Lakshminarayanan) Ambika Ramadurai (student of Sri Srinath Bala)
Maanav Balan (student of Sri Ramesh Srinivasan)
Pranav Tirumalai (student of Sri Tiruchur Narendran)
Sachin Venkat (student of Sri Ramesh Srinivasan)
Santhosh Ravindrabharathy (student of Sri Ravindrabharathy)
Srihari Srinivasan (student of Sri Trivandram Balaji)
Sriram Subramanian (student of Sri Gopi & Sri Tiruchur Narendran)
Umesh Gopi (student of Sri Gopi Lakshminarayanan)
Vivek Arvind(student of Sri Ganesh Ramanarayanan)

Dear members,

It was a very special event for all of us in CCC last Sunday as we had Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan sir in the audience, who blessed all our performers and accompanists with his encouraging words, actions and smiles from the first row, during the entire show! It was such an honor for me personally and our CCC performers that sir attended our event in full, amidst his hectic schedule. Thank you Sir!

We had ten solo performances, nine on the vocals and one violin solo and every single one put up their best show. We introduced Shriya Krishnan, Arjun Bharat and Sahana Kumar on the vocals, Mythri Sekar on the violin while rest of the repeat performers presented their segments with zest and maturity. Our OTS accompanists Aishwarya, Urmika, Tejas, Sriram, Srihari and Santhosh call for special mention. Vivrd’s RTP in Gurupriya was absolutely a delightful performance with Apurvaa and Pranav supporting him. Icing on the cake was when Neyveli Sir spoke in detail about each of our ten performances and every single one of our performers & accompanists, will share that video separately.

Neyveli sir also helped us launch our brand new CCC revamped- website at http://www.carnaticchamberconcerts.com/ and our sincere thanks to Srini Bala who helped us build it (we worked on it since March 2018) and it was gratifying to see the results of the team’s hard work that went into creating this beautiful, new website. Our special thanks to Radha for creating the logo and many landing page images to give the website a colorful and context based look and she also helped us with testing the website. Subha helped us with creating the teachers’ collage, Anandhi helped fix all the errors in our events migration, Vivrd helped migrate budding artists from old to new, and Vaidy helped fix all the errors in the budding artists migration. Last but not the least, we could NOT have done it without Namdev’s technical guidance all throughout the process, thank you Nami! We now have a cool website that boasts many features including a  COMMUNITY CALENDAR to post Carnatic Events held in the bay area (anyone can add a Carnatic event to this and I strongly encourage all students performing elsewhere to post it here instead of sending out emails), contact info of our resident musicians, individual pics of our volunteers, and more. Please do share your feedback either directly on the website (YES, we do have provision for that too!) or via usual email J

Our sincere appreciation goes to all our core team volunteers who help with various aspects of our event logistics. Thanks to Nithya Prakash yet again for bringing tea without even me asking for it, for our hard working volunteers. Rangaprabhu pitched in as an additional photographer to help take pics of various groups, thank you Prabhu.

Hope you like these pictures from our event, our sincere thanks to Prasanna for helping with photography this month and sending us these Crystal Clear Captures for us to enjoy. Many thanks to Vidya Ganesan and Anand Gurumurthy for helping with video recording/editing/upload as always, to produce this beautiful excerpt clipfor your enjoyment, and her quick turn-around motivates me to get this out to you soon J

Please save Dec 9th Sunday (2pm to 5pm) for our next event! Our performance request form for the first half of 2019 (Feb through June) will be going out shortly so if your child is eligible, please start thinking about your preferred month choices to fill it out. CCC is funded in part by California Arts Council (CAC), a state agency and we sincerely thank them for the same.

Regards,

Padma Mohan


Comments

  • Carnatic Chamber Concerts – 11th November 2018 CCC Event
    Authored By: Sashwat Mahalingam, Anirudh Ramadurai, Pranav Satyadeep, Shreya Virunchipuram, and Sripradha Manikantan

    When performing in the musical field, the
    relationship each component (vocal, violin, veena, mridangam, etc.) shares with each other tends to define what kind of environment is produced by the resulting music. How these key players connect on ideas, how they embellish aspects and help to cover for
    each other’s weaknesses, etc. is a mere portion of the rationale pointing to the importance of a significant interaction between the vocalist and accompanists of the stage. The Carnatic Chamber Concerts event of November 2018, featuring 7 performances and
    3 on-the-spot pieces, exemplified a great deal of this stage chemistry throughout the event. Every performance underscored a significant interaction between the artistes on stage that served to enhance the spirit, quality, and content of itself as a whole.
    Shriya Krishnan’s bright and bold voice started
    this month’s CCC with a rare varnam by her paramaguru, Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan, who happened to be attending the event. Along with her accompanists, Prahlad Saravanapriyan and Akshay Suresh, Shriya rendered the Adi Thalam varnam, “nI dayai puriguvAi,”
    portraying Devi as “Vasanthabhairavi,” also the raga mudra. The team then rendered a composition in the ragam Khamas, “santAnagOpAla krsNam,” a composition of Sri Muthuswamy Dikshitar. The violinist, Prahlad, displayed confidence and knowledge of all the nuances
    in the songs, following the vocalist very carefully, while the mridangist, Akshay, emphasized the gait of the songs with his involved and enthusiastic playing.
    The second performance of the day was by
    Amirtha Srinivasan on the vocal, Aparna Ganapathi Basavapatna on the violin, and Ambika Ramadurai on the mridangam. Amirtha commenced with a short ragam outline in Kalyani ragam. Her alapana combined a leisurely-paced methodology with the use of traditional
    phrases that served to establish a dominating sense of the ragam in the listener. The response produced by Aparna embodied a more contrasting dimension to the ragam, involving more brisk-toned phrases characteristic of this grand melakarta, and contributing
    to the depth of the ragam as a whole. This was followed by “kAmAkshIm kalyANIm,” a composition by Muthuswamy Dikshitar set to Rupaka Thalam. Throughout this piece, Amirtha took on the preset challenges of handling a Dikshitar krithi (considered the hardest
    of trinity compositions) well, while also bringing out the aspects of Kalyani in its full scope. The piece was followed by “rAma bhakti sAmrAjyam,” a composition of Tyagaraja in ragam Suddha Bangala (janyam of Kharaharapriya) set to Adi Thalam. In contrast
    to the previous piece, Amirtha took to rendering this riveting song at a faster pace. Throughout the performance, Aparna embellished both krithis with the addition of elegant prayogas during rendition. Ambika’s accompaniment on the mridangam was befitting
    and well-paced for both pieces, and included a nice mohra-korvai at the end of the first composition.
    Following Amirtha was a vocal performance
    by first-time performer Arjun Bharat, accompanied by Mythri Sekar on the violin and Vivek Arvind on the mridangam. Arjun sang “sAmi ninnE,” a varnam in the ragam Shankarabharanam, the 29th melakarta. This thana varnam set to Adi Talam is one of Veena Kuppaiyer’s
    most famous varnams. Arjun presented the varnam unhurriedly and adhered to the gamakams demanded in this classic ghana ragam. Mythri’s bright and confident violin support along with Vivek’s energetic mridangam accompaniment significantly enhanced the performance.
    The next performance for the day was a performance
    by Sahana Kumar on the vocals, Shreya Virunchipuram on the violin, and Maanav Balan on the mridangam. Sahana rendered a popular composition of Sri Oothukkadu Venkata Subbaiyer, “swAgatam krsNA,” in the ragam Mohanam (a janyam of the 28th melakartha Harikamboji)
    set to Adi Thalam. Sahana rendered the krithi well in her sweet voice emphasizing the appealing phrases of the ragam. Shreya’s response to the krithi was excellent that blended well with the sangathis and nuances of the ragam, while Manav gave dynamic and
    enthusiastic support on the mridangam.
    The next performance was a violin solo by
    Sahas Ramesh, who was accompanied by Umesh Gopi on the mridangam. Sahas started his violin solo slot with a captivating, yet soulful alapana depicting the elegant gait of the ragam Charukesi. They then rendered Saint Tyagaraja’s well-known composition, “ADamODi
    galadE,” set to Adi Thalam. Sahas’ adept playing exhibited the melodic splendor of the song, while Umesh’s accompaniment further highlighted the rhythmic beauty of the song. Sahas also incorporated a few kalpanaswarams, including sarvalaghu, kanakku (yati
    and porutham), and a samam-to-samam eight akshara korvai, at the pallavi line. Sahas’ performance concluded with a brief mohra-korvai by Umesh.
    Following Sahas’ enchanting violin solo was
    a repeat fifteen-minute vocal performance by Adithya Narayanan. Adithya was accompanied by violinist Aditya Satyadeep and mridangist Sachin Venkat. Adithya started with a rich alapana in the 63rd melakartha ragam, Lathangi. He incorporated several patterns
    in his ragam essay that showcased not only the scope of the ragam but also his brave attempt to traverse through the framework of Lathangi. Aditya Satyadeep closely followed Adithya on the violin, and then went on to present his perspective of the ragam through
    a touching solo. Adithya then proceeded to present Sri. Patnam Subramanya Iyer’s composition, “aparAdhamulanniyu,” set to Deshadi Thalam. Adithya brought out the emotions of the lyrics throughout his rendering. The sarvalaghu kalpanaswarams at the anupallavi
    line, “krpajEsi nA” were spontaneous. Adithya then concluded with a simple edam-to-edam korvai, which was mirrored carefully by both the violinist and the mridangist. In addition to this, mridangist Sachin’s accompaniment was very involved throughout the entire
    performance.
    Following Adithya’s performance was a very
    majestic and herculean “on-the-spot” performance by Sumanth Mahalingam. Accompanying Sumanth on the violin was Tejas Bharadwaj, and on the mridangam was Srihari Srinivasan. Sumanth started his performance with a very impressive and nostalgic alapana in the
    21st melakartha ragam, Keeravani. The ragam essay explored a changing mood as every phrase was rendered with fluidity and ease, combined with Sumanth’s well-cultured and energetic voice. His approach of the ragam was very experimental and extremely fresh to
    the ear. Sumanth showcased a vast variety of different phrases in the ragam, which ranged from sustaining the note itself to showcasing the full ragam through voice culture. Tejas ensued an equally elaborate response, as he handled the alapana with high finesse,
    bringing out the most deluxe aspects of the emotion of the ragam. Sumanth and his team proceeded to render a thevaram, which is a collection of Shaivaite (followers of Lord Shiva) devotional poetry, composed by Tirunavukkarasar, set to Misra Chapu Thalam.
    This thevaram, “vAnanai mathi sUDiya,” is supposedly just 1/5th of the pathigam (10 verses) in praise of Lord Shiva in Tiruvannamalai. Sumanth rendered this thevaram with rectitude and showcased bhavam at the apt parts of the song. Sumanth took up the challenge
    of doing both neraval and kalpanaswaram at the “charanam” line, “vIranai viDam uNDanai viNNavar-tIranai tiru aNNAmalaiyanai.” Both Sumanth and Tejas sang and played several rounds of each, and they showcased several patterns. The mridangist, Srihari accompanied
    with a high level of precision, especially regarding how well he contributed to the overall ambiance of the trio’s rendition and the song itself. Towards the end, he played a short but applaudable mohra-korvai that was well-executed. Throughout the performance,
    Sumanth showed great stage dynamics through his interactions and appreciation for his accompanists.
    Next was another impressive on-the-spot vocal
    performance by Shashvath Iyer, accompanied by Urmika Balaji on the violin and Santhosh Ravindrabharathy on the mridangam. Shashvath sang a weighty alapana in the ragam Thodi at a leisurely pace with many akaaram prayogams and brighas. Urmika responded with
    a leisurely alapana of her own, efficiently maintaining the integrity of the ragam. Shashvath then took up the krithi “karuNAnidhi ilalO,” a composition of Shyama Shastri dedicated to Goddess Brihanayaki and set to Tisra Nadai Adi Talam. The highlight of Shashvath’s
    performance was the niraval at the line “kOmala mrdu bhAshini ghana sadrsha vENi.” Shashvath did complete justice to the niraval with his soft and mellifluous singing exploring the beautiful nuances in Thodi. He then moved on to Kalapanaswarams where Shashvath
    and Urmika exchanged many rounds of sarvalaghu swarms with key sancharams of Thodi ending with a samam to samam korvai. Santhosh’s energetic mora korvai was a grand finale to this wholesome performance.
    Following Shashvath was a performance by
    Shashank Mahesh on the vocals, Aishwarya Anand on the violin, and Sriram Subramanian on the mridangam. Shashank started with a thevaram, “pErAyiram paravi,” in the ragam Mohanam, composed by ThirunAvukkarasar. He skillfully included many different phrases
    of ragam while rendering the thevaram. Aishwarya’s response in the ragam was precise in presenting the contours of the raga. The thevaram was followed by a classical composition of Sri Papanasam Sivan, “kApAli,” set to Adi Thalam. Shashank rendered the krithi
    with bhavam and perfect pronunciation in the language, Tamil. Shashank also incorporated various sets of kalpanaswarams, which included first speed sarvalaghu swarams and a second-speed swaram leading to a samam-to-samam korvai, at the pallavi line. Aishwarya’s
    response to all the swarams was quick and innovative. The mridangist, Sriram, laced the performance with his seemingly effortless rhythmic sound effects with a mohra korvai response.
    The concluding performance of the day was
    a Ragam-Thanam-Pallavi, presented by Vivrd Prasanna on the vocal, Apurvaa Anand on the violin, and Pranav Tirumalai on the mridangam. Vivrd commenced the RTP with an alapana in a rare janya of Vachaspathi, which was later revealed to be Gurupriya (SRGMDNS
    , SNDMGRS). His thorough improvisation was handled with extreme finesse, as he skillfully avoided falling into Vachaspathi in the absence of the panchamam swaram. Apurvaa’s response on the violin was equally expert as she managed to bring out the unique-to-violin
    melody of the ragam while experimenting with ease, as if it were a normal ragam like Thodi or Shankarabharanam. The thanam that followed, though brief, was extensively experimental but strong in its execution. While maintaining the appropriateness for the
    ragam, both the vocalist and violinist managed to tap into harmonious aspects as well as rhythmic subtleties contained within the thanam patterns. The pallavi that followed was a a composition of Vid. Shri. Neyveli Santhanagopalan, and went as: “vAzhvikka
    vandu guru param parai pOtri vazhamAnu isayin selvam nalgum emai”. The pallavi was set to Chaachaputha Talam, one of the first five Maarga Talams (meaning where the laghu is set to 5 counts) in the 108-talam scheme. The structure of this talam is a Guru (8
    aksharas)-Dhritam-Guru, and the pallavi began 3 matrais atheetham. To begin, the niraval executed by both Vivrd and Apurvaa combined a variety of different tasks, namely the displaying of the ragam throughout while also accounting for the immense packing of
    lyrics within the pallavi. Topping it off was the fact that the eddams of the pallavi structure in itself were not an easy feat to continuously keep track off, making the niraval as a whole thrilling for the audience. Following this was the thrikalam, where
    Vivrd took to keezh kAlam, keezh kAla tishram, sama kAlam, sama kAla tishram, and mEl kAlam, all executed swiftly from aaradhi to aaradhi. The swarams that ensued began with keezh kAlam swarams, which were all rendered with adroitness by both the vocalist
    and the violinist. Following these were the mEl kAlam swarams, in which simplistic but yet elegant-to-listen patterns strengthened the overall manodharmam throughout the exchanges. Apurvaa’s responses on the violin recreated this feel while also adding extra
    aspects of creativity that raised the overall standard of the concert. Following this was the ragamalika swaram, which was rendered in both Lalitha (where the violin kanakku was particularly notable in execution) and Sriranjani ragam. The pallavi was concluded
    with a brief swaram essay and a korvai involving a subtle increment pattern from eddam to eddam. Throughout the Pallavi, Pranav’s accompaniment on the mridangam was extremely fluid, as he embellished his playing beyond the pallavi’s structure as to enhance
    the layam of the overall concert. He finished the pallavi with a short tishram excerpt followed by a challenging mohra-korvai.
    On the whole, the November 2018 CCC event
    was yet another remarkable event featuring ten performances. Kudos to the students who showcased their talents during this event and best wishes to all of them for a bright musical future.

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