Sunday, June 9, 2019
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Shirdi Sai Parivaar
1221 California Circle, Milpitas CA 95035

Event Highlight

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Performers: 
Chinmay Raghvendran (student of Sri. Shivkumar Bhat)
Janani & Mythri Sekar (student of J. B. Keerthana & Nandini Ramamurthi)
Manya Sriram (student of Sri Paduka Academy-Sri.Vivek Sundararaman)
Maya Mahadevan (student of Smt. Nandini Ramamurthi)
Meera Bharat (student of Sri Paduka Academy-Sri.Vivek Sundararaman)
Sashwat Mahalingam (student of Sri Paduka Academy-Sri.Hari Devanath)
Shreyas Bharadwaj -Flute (student of Sri. Mohanrangan Govindaraj)
Sripradha Manikantan - Veena (student of Sri. Mudikondan S.N.Ramesh)

String accompanists:

Aditya Satyadeep (student of Smt. Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi)
Apurvaa Anand (student of Smt. Anuradha Sridhar)
Deeksha Venkateswaran (student of Ms. H.M.Smitha)
Sahas Ramesh (student of Sri. Vittal Ramamurthy)
Shravya Srinath  (student of Smt. Sandhya Srinath)
Tejas Bharadwaj (student of Sri BV Raghavendra Rao)
Urmika Balaji (student of Vid. A.Kanyakumari)
Mrudangam accompanists:
Akshay Aravindan  (student of Sri Kumbakonam Swaminathan)
Akshay Suresh (student of Sri. Gopi Lakshminarayanan)
Lalit Kovvuri (student of Sri Ramesh Srinivasan)
Sachin Venkat (student of Sri K V Gopalakrishnan)
Shreyas Balaji (student of Sri Ravindrabharathy Sridharan)
Sriram Subramanian(student of Sri. Gopi L. & Sri T.Narendran)
Vaibhav Prakash(student of Sri. Gopi Lakshminarayanan)
Varchas Bharadwaj (student of Sri Trivandrum Balaji)

Dear members,

It was an emotional afternoon for all of us who gathered at the Sai Mandir auditorium for our June CCC event Sunday on two counts, Vivek’s farewell and graduation ceremony for our big batch of graduating seniors. A big thanks to all of you members who made an effort to be there in person to share the afternoon with us.

The hot weather did not deter our performers and accompanists from doing a stellar job. We introduced Chinmay and Maya on the vocals, Sripradha on the veena, Shreyas Bharadwaj on the flute, and Shreyas Balaji on the Mrudangam and all of them did a great job. We had 4 seniors, Shreyas Bharadwaj, Meera Bharat, Janani Sekar and Apurvaa Anand give their final performances before heading to college this Fall. Manya took up the OTS challenge and performed with Apurvaa and Akshay A. supporting her. All our other accompanists as always, did a fine job as well.

The highlight was a custom RTP from Sashwat Mahalingam dedicated to one of our beloved resident guru and his family, who’ll be moving out of state. Yes, if you haven’t heard, Sri Vivek Sundararaman is moving to Texas and since June was the last CCC he may attend, Sashwat who was in our June line up took up a pallavi in his honor and delivered it flawlessly with Aditya and Sriram supporting him on stage. Big thanks to Sri Hari Devanath for composing this pallavi which gave an emotional and fitting farewell to our beloved guru Sri Vivek who has supported all of our initiatives since 2010. I had the pleasure of introducing him to the bay area as part of the IMPART 25 USA event in June 2010 and he quickly became an integral part of our intimate music community. It’s a huge loss for CCC and the entire bay area that he’s moving and we will dearly miss his encouraging first-row presence at our future events.

We have 22 seniors graduating from high school this year, single largest batch ever and only 14 of them attended our event Sunday. We had the pleasure of acknowledging their success and grateful to Sri Srikanth Chary for greeting and blessing the grads on stage.

Here are the pics from the event (courtesy of Barath Rangaswamy), and our sincere thanks to him for covering the event and uploading the pics quickly.

Vidya has become a pro at editing the video excerpts and here’s the video clip from our June event. Our deepest appreciation to her for doing this month after month!

Please save July 13th Saturday from 2-5pm for our next event and also note it will be at Fremont Adult school in 4700 Calaveras Ave, Fremont, CA 94538 as our usual venue SSP was not available.

Happy Father’s Day to all the CCC dads, hope your loved ones treat you with something very special this Sunday!

Regards,

Padma


Comments

  • Carnatic Chamber Concerts – June 2018 CCC Event
    Authored By: Sashwat Mahalingam, Anirudh Ramadurai, Shreya Virunchipuram, Mahathi Shankarram, Pranav Satyadeep, Sripradha Manikantan, Srishiva Manikantan

    Chinmay Raghavendran started off the program
    with a beautiful Navaragmalika varnam, “Valachi” set to Adi Thalam composed by Sri Patnam Subramania Iyer. Varnam was composed in 9 beautiful ragams viz. Kedaram, Sankarabharanam, Kalyani, Begada, Kamboji, Yadhukula Kamboji, Bilahari, Mohanam, and Sree. Chinmay
    rendered the varnam with a good understanding of all ragamalika part and with a nice transition from one ragam to the other. Then he moved on to the rendition of a famous composition of Sri Purandara Dasa, “tambUri mITIdhava” in Sindhubhairavi ragam, janyam
    of 8th melakarta Hanumathodi set to Adi Thalam. Chinmay rendered the krithi well with ethical layam aspects. Deeksha, the violinist, emulated the performance with her mellifluous accompaniment. Percussionist, Shreyas showcased his matured performance with
    his rhythmic accompaniment.
    Following Chinmay was a vocal performance by
    Maya Mahadevan, who was accompanied by Shravya Srinath on the violin and Lalit Kovvuri on the mridangam. Maya rendered a popular varnam, “evvarI bOdhana” composed by Sri. Patnam Subramania Iyer in the melodious audava ragam Abhogi, janyam of 22nd melakarta
    Karaharapriya. Maya brought out nice sancharams of the ragam with her very bold commanding voice. Shravya, the violinist, equally demonstrated her skills by matching the ragam bravam in every aspect of the varnam. Percussionist, Lalit did an excellent job
    with his accompaniment.
    Following Maya was a debut veena solo by Sripradha
    Manikantan, accompanied by Akshay Suresh on the mridangam. Sripradha began with a relaxed and mellifluous alapana in the well known ragam Shakarabharanam, the 29th melakarta. Following the alapana, Sripradha presented Saint Tyagaraja’s popular krithi ‘Swara
    Raga Sudha’, set to Adi Thalam. The abundant gamakams of Shankarabharanam were heard with clarity and purity on Sripradha’s Veena, doing justice to this masterpiece krithi. The kalpana swarams on the Pallavi line incorporated critical phrases of this ghana
    ragam. Sripradha included a brief korraipu on the note ga, before concluding with an edam-to-edam korvai along with a mohra-korvai by Akshay. Akshay’s energetic support greatly enhanced the performance.
    Following Sripradha’s debut veena solo was a
    vocal performance by Manya Sriram, who was accompanied on-the-spot (OTS) by Apurvaa Anand on the violin and Akshay Aravindan on the mridangam. Manya chose a classical composition of Sri Mutthuswami Dikshitar, “Marakathavallim” in ragam Kamboji, 28th melakarta
    Hari Kamboji janyam set to Adi thalam. Manya started with a harmonious alapana in Kamboji, demonstrating an excellent voice range including many different phrases of the ragam. Violinist, Apurvaa’s response on the violin was precise and demonstrated her skills,
    familiarity with the ragam. Manya did neraval on pallavi line, “marakatha vallIm”. She did few rounds in kizh kalam followed by a round in mEl kalam. Her neraval was measured and well done. Apurvaa’s response to neraval was excellent as usual with a quick
    grasp on the structure of the pallavi line. Following neraval, Manya continued her manodharmam with kalpana swarams. She started with several rounds of kizh kalam swarams with good sarvalaghu patterns followed by mEl kalam swarams, korappu, and an interesting
    eddam-to-eddam korvai. Apurvaa’s response to all the swarams was, and she followed the korvai very closely. Mridangist, Akshay did an excellent job in following the krithi closely with his seemingly effortless sound effects. He complimented the vocalist with
    the soothing quality of his accompanying techniques combined with intense and energetic rhythms.
    Following Manya was a 15-minute slot by Meera
    Bharat. She was aptly accompanied by Urmika Balaji on violin and Sachin Venkat on mridangam. Meera initiated her concert with a brief, melodious Saveri alapana. She skillfully sang several canonical and traditional phrases, previously rendered by many established
    artists such as G.N.B, M.S. Subbulakshmi, and D.K. Jayaraman, to name a few. Her ragam was followed closely by another beautiful sketch of the ragam, carried out by Urmika. The imaginative portrayals of the soulful ragam truly captured the essence of Saveri.
    Meera then proceeded to present Thyagaraja’s popular krithi, Daridapuleka Vedite, Desh Adhi Thaalam. Her elaborate sangathis were complimented by the propelling and rhythmic mridangam as well as the sweet-sounding violin. She sang her kalpanaswarams on the
    line “Valachi padamula nammitE.” Her manodharmam consisted of kizh-kAlam and mEl-kAlam swaram combinations of kanakku makutams, as well as sarvalaghu swaram patterns. To tie off her performance, Meera sang a sarvalaghu koraippu which flowed into an eddam-to-eddam
    korvai. To round off the slot, Sachin cleanly executed a short but engaging thani.
    Following Meera was a performance by Shreyas
    Bharadwaj on the flute, Tejas Bharadwaj on the violin, and Varchas Bharadwaj on the mridangam. Shreyas began with a ragam alapana in Andholika. In a brief span of 2 minutes, Shreyas showcased an effortlessly executed, unique take on Andholika, encompassing
    its key phrases as well as its more subtle rakthi prayogams. Tejas’ response alapana to this was equally dulcet, as he exemplified a more brisk, quick-paced side of the ragam. Following this was Tyagaraja’s popular gem, “rAga sudhA rasa”, set to Rettakalai
    Adi Thalam. For his manodharmam, Shreyas chose the anucharanam line, ‘vidulu jIvan muktulani tyAgarAju teliyu’ for kalpanaswarams. Beginning with kizh kalam rounds, each of Shreyas’ rounds provided a heavy emphasis on the classical aspect of the ragam, especially
    the prayogams surrounding the rishabham, followed by rapid-fire mEl kAlam swarams including various kanakkus such as 3×6 and 3×7. Each of Tejas’ responses to these swarams was equally expert at demonstrating the raga rasa, while also mirroring all the laya
    details within (kanakku, sarvalaghu, etc.). Throughout the performance, Varchas’ accompaniment on the mridangam was set perfectly towards the mood of the ragam (and the rendition as a whole), and his playing enhanced each melodic detail in the krithi. After
    a short samam-to-eddam korvai, he played a samam-to-samam mohra, followed by a complex samam-to-eddam korvai combining chatusram nadai and mEl kAla tisram nadai.
    Next was a vocal duet by sisters Janani and Mythri
    Sekar accompanied by Sahas Ramesh on the violin and Vaibhav Prakash on the mridangam. The sisters started their slot by taking turns to sing a detailed alapana incorporating both mellow and faster phrases in the ragam Purvikalyani and showed the essence of
    the ragam. Sahas played his own bhavam-filled alapana with many intricate phrases. They then rendered a composition of Saint Thyagaraja, “jnAna mosaga rAda,” in Rupakam thalam. Janani and Mythri sang the sangathis in unison, their voices harmonious and delivering
    the sangathis clearly. They chose the line, “paripUrNa niSkaLanka” to render neraval and swaram. The neraval was rendered in two speeds and consisted of many sarvalaghu patterns bringing out the beauty of the Purvikalyani. They chose to sing swarams incorporating
    beautiful sarvalaghus and some porutthams in two speeds. They then played a koraippu anchoring on “Sa,” followed by a brief korvai. Sahas responded with apt neravals and swarams and reflected many details sung by the sisters. Vaibhav enhanced the layam aspects
    of the song and followed the swaram and neraval closely. He concluded the
    performance
    with a brief thani avarthanam.
    The
    final slot of the day was a grand finale presented by Sashwat Mahalingam on the vocals, who was aptly supported by Aditya Satyadeep on the violin and Sriram Subramanian on the mridangam. Sashwat presented a Pallavi dedicated to his guru and one of the CCC
    Teachers, Sri. Vivek Sundararaman and his family. He commenced with a bright alapana in the 22nd melakarta ragam, Kharaharapriya. The ragam essay explored a changing mood as every phrase was rendered with fluidity and ease, and his ragam approach overall was
    incredibly fresh to the ear. Violinist Aditya Satyadeep gave an equally elaborated response as he brought out the most deluxe aspects of the ragam. The thanam that ensued was rhythm-laden. Sashwat and Aditya exchanged several rounds of thanam in both Chatusram
    Nadai and Khanda Nadai. With Mridangist Sriram keeping the tempo during the thanam, it made it even more enjoyable for the audience. The Pallavi that was executed was set to Trigathi Tisra Jathi Ata Thalam, where the first laghu was done in Chatusram, the
    second laghu in Misram, and the drithams in Tisram and was composed by one of Sashwat’s gurus, Sri. Hari Devanath. The lyrics were inspired by one of Sri. Harikesha Nallur Muthaiah Bhagavathar’s krithis, “mUvAsai koNDa tirumAl.” The sahityam of the Pallavi
    Sashwat presented was, “mUvasai (move-aasai) koNDa perumAn bhuvanapathi thirumagaL vasudhApriyan shAshvatha mAnavan.” The neraval that ensued was handled with great attention to ragam and bhavam by both the vocalist and violinist in 1st and 2nd speed. The
    trikAlam involved kizh kalam, chatusra tisram, sama kAlam, and mEl kAlam, all of which were handled with precisism. In addition to this, Sashwat presented pratilomam, as well as a 4-3-2-1 pattern in oru kalai, which was well appreciated by the audience. After
    doing both kizh kAlam and mEl kAlam kalpanaswarams on multiple eddams, Sashwat displayed his ability to switch ragams with ease. He switched to Mohanakalyani for “bhuvanapathi,” then Megharanjani for “shAshvatha,” and finally Sahana for “vasudhApriyan.” Finally,
    Sashwat sang a viloma swaram (reverse ragamalika), which was followed by a samam-to-eddam korvai. Sriram accompaniment on the mridangam kept the temp on point concluded the performance with a dynamic eddam-to-eddam mohra-korvai. It was a very moving tribute
    to Guru Vivek Sundararaman!

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