Whirlwind....

Today was the last concert in what was a hectic schedule with four concerts back to back - in different places.
After the Jayanagar concert which I wrote about in the previous entry, I performed at Ranipet in Tamilnadu.
The ever effervescent Arcot Raghu maama who is the man behind the Amritavarshini Sangeetha Sabha was at his cordial best and the concert went off smoothly - with a large dose of Tamizh kritis; the main piece being Tiruvadi Charanam in Kambhoji.
Interestingly, there was a lady who came up and requested for Sri Ramam Ravikulabdhi Somam after the tani avartanam which I had to oblige with. Turned out she was a big Dikshitar fan.
Vidwans MS Ananthakrishnan and Trivandrum Vaidyanathan played the violin and mridangam respectively.

The next day was at Mysore in a 120 year old temple called the Moole Rama Mandiram. The place is tiny and that is not an exaggeration but it has an old world charm to it.
Today it stands (literally) at the crossroads with traffic noise blaring outside but inside, the century old deity and the old world paintings have an electrifying effect when you sit down to perform.
Vidwans Mathur Srinidhi was on the violin, C Cheluvaraju on the mridangam while Shashishankar played the ghatam.
I sang Shanmugapriya (Marivere) and Mohanam (Evaruraa) in detail.

Today (30th) was a memorable concert at Sri Vani School, Basaveswara Nagar. The audience turned out large numbers and were very appreciative and encouraging.
I sang Sahana (Rama Ika Nannu) and Mukhari (Ksheenamai) in detail; and this is where it begins to get interesting.
Just as I finished the final korvai in the main piece (Mukhari), it started pouring cats and dogs!!!
The audience had to be relocated while the concert went on as usual....I had originally planned for an RTP too but the excessive rain made me change plans and I instead sang several tukkudas.
Vidushi Nalina Mohan was the violin while Vidwans Sudheendra and Swamy played the mridangam and khanjira respectively.
The mridangam support by Sri Sudheendra especially was excellent and definitely took the concert to a different level.

Singing concerts back to back has both its pros and cons.
On the cons side, you need to rest well both physically and mentally so as to be able to give you 100% on stage.
On the pros side, you begin to set into a rhythm and new ideas start pouring in on stage - and you keep trying to push yourself to the limit every time. A tremendous experience - both exhilarating and daunting at the same time.

As for me, I had a ball in all the concerts so far and that is what matters !!!!