Shivamani (Drums) with U. Sriniwas (Mandolin) and Steven (Keyboard) - A brief blog post

Artists: Shivamani (Drums), U. Sriniwas (Mandolin) and Steven (Keyboard)

Organized by: Times Pune Festival

Time and Venue: At Poona Club on 23rd January, 7:00 PM

 

Namaskar!

 

I am hardly in a position to write a "review" of this beautiful concert which everyone and certainly yours truly enjoyed immensely. It is one of the most memorable concerts I have ever attended. It was flawless, exciting, sublime, having something for everybody - from the novice, to the connoisseur or from the curious kid to the hippy! All this without ever sacrificing either the quality or sanctity of music. Something only a true artist - who has keenly analyzed the audience and put a lot of thought into the content and presentation - can do.

 

The artists started the concert with Shiva Stuti.

 

The melodic part of the second piece was in what sounded like raga Gavati (disclaimer for the whole post - to my Hindusthani Sangeet oriented mind). Initial short alaap played by Sriniwas set the mood of the raga followed by a composition set to 16 (or 8) beat rhythmic cycle.

 

The melodic part of the third piece sounded like Dharmavati (similar but not same as Madhuvanti in Hindusthani Sangeet) set to 8 beat rhythmic cycle.

 

After this Shivamani played solo for more than one hour using 100s of drums, bells, suitcases - bottles and what not. For somebody like me it is simply impossible to put the experience in words. Shivamani dedicated this solo to A. R. Rehman.

 

Next there was a short piece for which I could not recognize the raga (or possibly it was not based on a particular raga). The melodic part of this piece was played by Steven on the keyboards - with a lot of speed and energy!

 

Sriniwas played brief alaap in what sounded similar to raga Jogiya to me followed by the bhajan Raghupati Raghav Rajaram.

 

The artists wanted to end the concert here but the crowed asked for more. The artists played a short piece with melodic part set to Ahir Bhairav.

 

The crowed still wanted some more drums - Shivamani played some more using a medley of A. R. Rehman songs (while Steven and U. Sriniwas packed their instruments).

 

Throughout Sriniwas was superb as expected. Steven also provided excellent support on keyboard!

 

Hats off to Shivamani!

Warm regards,

Bansuriwala

 

PS:

 

Please accept my apology for the delay in this post as well as keeping the concert calendar out of date in spite of many interesting concerts that took place in Pune during last few days. It is not an excuse , this happened since yours truly was on a visit to Ajanta-Ellora.

 

My attempt at writing down the piece in Gavati (which I think was set to something like a teen-taal) as I recall (malaa umajalela)

 

1 2 3 4	5 6 7 8	9 10 11 12	13 14 15 16
- - - -	- - - -	M P n -	P  - S, -
D - - M	P - - -	G M r -	- ,n - S
G - - -	- - - -

Similar attempt to document the mukhada of the piece in Dharmavati (set to a taal that sounded like keharwa)

1 2 3 4	5 6 7 8
P - - m	g - - R
S - - -	- - - -
m - - -	g R - -
S R - -	- - - -

Review of Abhivyakti - An Audio Visual Concert Based on Ragamala Paintings and Raga Sangeet (Sarod and Vocal)

Main Artists: Vishvajit Roy Chaudhari (Sarod), Priyadarshini Kulkarni (Vocal), Sanjay Kane (film of paintings)

Support Artists: Bharat Kamat (Tabla), Suyog Kundalkar (Harmonium)

Master of the Ceremony: Sucheta Kane

Concept: Priyadarshini Kulkarni

Organizers: New Age Foundation

Venue and Time: S. M. Joshi Hall, Navi Peth on 17th January, 2009 at 6:45 PM

Namaskar!

 

This week again I was faced with the problem of having to select one from the flooding of ICM concerts in Pune. Being an avid enthusiast of experimentation, I chose Abhivyakti, even though my interest and knowledge of paintings and art are limited  to the extreme miracle of having passed elementary grade drawing examination in C grade!

 

I reached the venue at about 6:30 PM and managed to get a good 5th row seat (first four rows being reserved for invitees). At about 6:50, the MC took the mike in her hands, announced a few more minutes of delay and apologized for it. But just at that instant the chap adjusting the lights on the ladder got down, moved the ladder away, the artists walked onto the stage, the MC took charge of the mike once again and started the proceedings of the evening - all of this requiring not even a minute! Then there were a few preliminaries - welcoming of artists, felicitations of dignitaries a couple of small speeches etc. This was followed by a brief background about the concert theme and an introduction to raga-paintings, their styles and history.  A lot of emphasis was also put on the raga-ragini association by Hanumana. All I could gather from this was that the paintings were more than 350 years old, had been collected from various museums in India, digitized and painstakingly worked on to make them presentable in a film. Video projection screens had been set up on both the sides of the stage on which the film was projected. The idea was to project the pictures corresponding to the ragas being performed in Jaipur style!

 

The musical part of the concert began with raga Shree on Sarod by Vishvajit Roy Chaudhari. The alaap was brief and very effective in setting the mood of the raga. Even though one expects the r-P, P-r meends in Shree, Vishvajitji played these remarkably. The alaap was followed by a madhyalaya jhaptaal composition in Shree. While the raga performance was very good, it was too brief. Vishvajitji followed Shree a short composition in teentaal in raga Jaitashree.

 

Next Priyadarshini Kulkarni sang vilambit teentaal bandish - aave rajan aaye in raga Gauri after a brief alaap. While not too elaborate, the raga vistaar was well done. Typical Jaipur style taans were well executed. Priyadarshiniji sang a bandish - tum sughar chatur balama - set to ektal in raga Kedar. This was followed by Basant (madhyalaya teentaal - piya sanga khelo ri and drut teen taal tarana). Somehow I found the presentation of Kedar as well as Basant to be quite ordinary.

 

After this Vishvajitji  played Malakauns. The alaap was well done and quickly captivated the mood of the audience. The alaap was followed by a gat in teentaal. While brief the raga-vistaar was well balanced. I felt that this was the best part of the concert. Vishvajitji briefly played raga Darbari after this. Somehow it was not as captivating as Malakauns.

 

Priyadarshiniji sang raga Nayaki Kanada next - ratiya mai jaagi re in madhyalaya teentaal.

 

This was followed by both the main artists playing/singing the famous bhajan Bhavani-Dayani (madhyalaya jhaptaal) and a tarana in teentaal in Bhairavi.

 

Suyog Kundalkar and Bharat Kamat provided appropriate Harmonium and Tabla sangat respectively.

 

To be very honest, I did not pay much (any?) attention to the projections showing the paintings. I did not find them distracting either. But I am convinced that a huge amount of effort had been put in making the film of the paintings. I am not in a position to comment any more about this aspect of the concert.

 

Overall I applaud the spirit of the concert. The effort and thought that went in planning and presenting such a program were quite evident.  So was the enthusiasm for experimentation while maintaining the dignity of classical art forms of music and art.

 

Now some "complaints" (only in the area of music) -

When two artists present a program together, it is important that both of them are of similar caliber as well as having excellent understanding/coordination or sharing "chemistry". Unfortunately I felt that there was a bit of a mismatch in this case. And probably because of this Priyadarshiniji looked and sounded quite nervous. This was most evident when they performed Bhairavi together. I fully appreciate the complexities of performing together. I do think that such a program can be much more successful with more collective practice.

 

I felt that presenting so many ragas - nine to be precise - most being "big" in such a short time makes the concert somewhat cluttered. I would have enjoyed unhurried renditions of 2-3 ragas far better.

 

Anyway, keep up the good work!

 

Warm regards,

 

Bansuriwala

 

PS:

I found the Jaitshree gat in teentaal quite interesting. The mukhada was something like this -

S G G P

m d P -

G r G P

G r S -

Finespun Sarangi Concert by Pt. Santosh Mishra - Review Blog

Sarangi: Pt. Santosh Mishra

Tabla: Ramdas Palsule

Sarangi (sangat): Sangeet Mishra (son of Pt. Santosh Mishra)

Tanpura: Vinay Chitrav

Organizers: Talayan Music Circle and Gandharva Mahavidyalaya

Venue and Time: Vishnu-Vinayak Sabhagruha of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya (Pune) on 6th January at 6:30PM

 

 

Namaskar!

 

Even though there have been many interesting concerts taking place in Pune this week, my schedule permitted me to attend only one :(. Sarangi concerts are rare and hence I decided to attend this one, and undoubtedly it turned out to be a great choice :).

 

The confusion started in the concert publicity itself! Even though the weekly calendar published in Sakal last week listed Pt. Santosh Mishra's concert for 6th January (which I had listed on the blog), yesterday's edition of Sakal had two advertisements on the same page! One announced the artist's name as "Ramesh Mitra" while the other one announcing it as "Santosh Mishra".

 

Anyway, as I reached the venue at exactly 6:30PM and grabbed a front row seat on the bharatiya baithak, sounds of drut teental bandish in raga Jog played on Sarangi were audible from the green room. The concert began in about 10 minutes with Pramod Marathe (well known harmonium player and principal of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Pune) clarifying the advertisement goof-up and introducing the artists.

 

As expected Panditji started the concert with raga Jog.  The sarangis were well tuned with very rich sound quality. The alaap was short, captivating and very effective in establishing mood of the raga right at the onset. The meends around both the gandhars involving shadja and madhyam were sublime. Panditji continued with bada khyal in vilambit ektaal. The raga vistar was unhurried and well-rounded. After the antara, Panditji performed beautiful layakari by means of jod, absolutely exquisite! The taans were crisp, tuneful and well executed. The bada khyal was followed by drut teen taal bandish - sajan more ghara aaye (I suppose so). This is one of the best renditions of this bandish, either vocal or instrumental, I have heard. The variations around the second line of the asthayee were intricate and delicate. In the drut section for a few minutes Panditji played a different mukhada bearing the weight of Jhaptaal - very nice.

 

After this Panditji played a thumri in raga mishra khamaj set to addha teentaal. He sang a bit to introduce the lyrics - sanwariya lage tose naina followed by a very popular dadra in the same raga (dagar bich kaise kahu...). As part of the dadra Panditji played raga-mala containing Hamir, Kedar, Chandrakauns, Malakauns, Charukeshi and Darbari (hopefully I haven't missed anything).

 

Panditji concluded the concert with a beautiful kajari in pahadi set to kaharwa. While he did sing the words, I could not catch them properly. Panditji explained that it was a song of a lady who is angry with her brother for not coming to take her to the maternal home during the month of Sawan. In the song she says that she wont go with him even if he were to come now including elaborations like she will serve him food in gold plate but wont care even if he does not eat! Beautiful composition that was played very well and enjoyed by the audience.

 

Ramdas Palsule's tabla sangat was enjoyable as always. The solos he played during the drut teen taal bandish were very well executed. I suppose it is because of the clarity of bols, tonal quality as well as perfection to laya that Ramdasji's solo sessions sound so good (as opposed to the noise and disruption by many contemporary tabla players). The session having Jhaptaal bearing (followed immediately after Panditji played a Jhaptaal bearing mukhada during the teen taal bandish) was quite remarkable.

 

Sangeet Mishra provided good support on Sarangi. He sounded quite tayyar. There was noticeable difference in the sound qualities of the two Sarangis. I overheard somebody talk about the possibility of Panditji's Sarangi having leather strings whereas Sangeet's having synthetic strings… Not knowing much about Sarangi, I am not in a position to comment further. The difference could even have been due to mike settings!

 

Now some small complaints:

While Panditji as well as Sangeet possess good voice and singing the lyrics does enhance the overall experience, I feel that they should practice the singing more seriously and avoid sounding out of tune.

I felt that the ati-drut section of the teentaal bandish was somewhat stretched without much content. Also the instruments - sarangis and tabla both had gone slightly out of tune at that time. Quite avoidable really!

 

I felt that the concert ended abruptly! A short bhairavi would have provided the icing on the cake.

 

Overall a very interesting, enjoyable and memorable concert!

 

Cheers!

Bansuriwala

PS:

I found the mukhada having the bearing of jhaptaal played in drut teen taal to be quite interesting. Here is an attempt to put it in jhaptaal notation -

S, n

S, n P

G M

- P n

Adding listing of ICM concerts taking place in Pune to this blog page

Namaskar! Happy New Year 2009!

When I posted the review of Pt. Ronu Mujumdar's concert organized by SPIC-MACAY, many people wrote to me asking how I came to know about the concert while they missed it. There is no secret. I just read the Pune editions of "Sakal" and "The Indian Express" every day and look for any music concert advertisements or announcements. Both the newspapers also publish weekly cultural calendar on Thursday (most of the times).

In order to make these concerts known to the web savvy Punekars or visitors, I am adding a list of announcements to this page. I am hoping to keep it updated as I notice new concerts being announced in the newspapers. If any readers of the blog know about concerts not listed here, please write to me and I will be very happy to add an entry. 

Cheers!

Bansuriwala