Chamber Concerts

Had two back to back chamber concerts this weekend.

Saturday was at Chennai - for a gathering of folks from an online Carnatic Music portal called rasikas.org. I sang a rare Mysore Sadasiva Rao piece as part of a small elaboration - Pedda Devundani (Mohanam).

Apart from that, I chose to sing an RTP in Reetigowla as the main piece.

B Anantakrishnan was on the violin while Vidwan Mannarkoil J Balaji anna was on the Mridangam.

Sunday was a different ball game all together.

Sri Tiru Iyengar of ISKCON had specifically organized a Muthuswami Dikshitar memorial concert under the aegis of a Chamber Music Organization called Akshayaloka.

The gathering was more like a family affair but comprised serious listeners of music.

Being an exclusive Dikshitar concert, I tried to package different tempos and also tried different approaches - e.g. - I sang the memorable shlokam "Moulav Ganga" as a precursor to Ananda Natana Prakasam and the effect was pretty good I felt.

Another new thing I tried myself was to elaborate Ravikriya - offers quite a bit of scope I felt. Must work on it.

The main piece was Sri Rajagopala in Saveri with elaboration at atheetha graham ("Muraare...").