Tributes through melody and dance

Thyagaraja Festival – now having morphed into the Mum Murthigal festival- was held over 2 days at the Kel Watson Theatre recently. As always, the pancharatna kriti rendition was the highlight of the festival. The entire carnatic music teaching and performing artiste community gathered on the stage to render the 5 great kritis of Thyagaraja, and a few choice compositions of Dikshitar and Shyama Shastry.

The highlight of the aradhana was special invitee from Chennai, Adyar K Lakshman, the doyen of Bharatanatyam teachers in India, and also the chief guest this year. In a special felicitation ceremony, the Academy of Indian Music presented him with a lifetime Achievement award – the title of Sruthi-LayaNritya Rishi – for five decades of contribution to music and dance, and as recognition of his virtuosity and vision. It was a moving occasion, as in the audience were some of the students he had trained and who now run successful dance schools in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Brisbane.

Since the festival is organised by Melbourne’s arts power couple Narmatha and Ravichandhira, it showcased many of their new initiatives: more than 5 students from various mridangam schools played the instrument extemporaneously, accompanying local artists during the two day long festival; there were Bharathanatyam performances by Narmatha’s dance students, fusing instrumental melody and works of Lalgudi Pancharatnam for the first time and flute Balsai’s music incorporated western themes. TYME (Talented Young Musicians’ Ensemble) was an important segment, begun three years ago and launched by Guru Karaikkudi Mani, and put up a splendid performance. Seven different schools with 30 students jointly gave an orchestral performance which impressed music connoisseurs. A significant achievement was 8 year old Shakthi Kannan’s (of Narmatha Ravichandhira’s Bharatha Choodamani School) performance in Myladthurai, Tamil Nadu, as a representative of Australia in a

The Laya Vidhya Centre held a concert recently at the Ashwood Secondary College to commemorate the late Trivandrum Sri R Venkataraman, a doyen among veena virtuosos. Quite aptly, it was a veena recital by two of his favourite disciples, the Iyer Brothers, with Sridhar Chari on the mrudangam.

The Iyer Brothers, Ramnatha and Gopinath had written a moving tribute to their guru in the April issue of Sruti, the premier magazine of the arts in India. They recollected some