Swaras galore at Swara

Sydney’s own version of an annual international Carnatic music festival is catching

BY MALLI IYER

The Swara-Laya Fine Arts Society served up a delectable treat at its fourth annual Sydney Music Festival during the Queen’s birthday weekend. Art and music lovers in the community are a discerning lot who have built up their expectations to the point where they seek high quality, and the Swara-Laya group have not disappointed them. This year’s event saw the coming together of several celebrities of Carnatic music who perform on the global stage with monotonous regularity. The top most celebration of the festive season takes place in Chennai every December, bringing every musician and art lover in hordes from the world over.

The second most recognised event of this kind is held in Cleveland, Ohio every year in March and it is a jamboree for the rich and famous. Sydney Festival has recently attracted attention and it has become a sought after event – the top notch artistes are now vying with each other to get a prestige concert due to the response of the diaspora in Australia and New Zealand.

As a not-for-profit charity group, Swara-Laya have donated thousands of dollars to Ramakrishna Mission and other overseas orphanages with proceeds from the music festival.

This year, Swara-Laya organisers loaded the program schedule to the point that the audience spent their entire weekend attending breakfast, pre-lunch, post lunch and evening musical concerts for three whole days running. Adequate catering arrangements were made so that a variety of food was available at reasonable prices for those that chose to temporarily shut down their kitchens at home.

The music and dance programs were slotted in beautifully to accommodate local artistes, students, fusion, light music and several concerts by the overseas professionals. Rasikas and local aspirants made up of musicians, music teachers, sponsors and patrons from parallel organisations thronged the auditorium.

The highlights of the festival are listed here as per the batting order given by the organisers. Malati Prasad A multi-faceted artiste with an MBA to boot, Malati Prasad is a renowned musician, dancer and television host. She kicked off the proceedings with several Meerabai poems such as, Pyaare darshan deejo aaj, Barse badariya saawan ki and Mere to giridhar gopal depicting Meerabai’s journey of life in devotion of Lord Krishna through dance. Her versatility was demonstrated whilst she interspersed her dance with her own singing. Her movements and mudras were a blend of Bharata Natyam and Kathak. The background music was soothing and the dance was expressive. She fully lived up to her reputation as a “young achiever”.

Carnatica Brothers Karaikurichi Shashikiran and ‘Chitraveena Ganesh’ not only have an impressive musical lineage, they have also built up a reputation for lecture demonstrations and researching the teaching methodology in Carnatic music. Their rendition of Diwakaram Sanaiswaram in raga yadukula kamboji was a prayer for blessings of Lord Saneeswaran. They also sang krithis in raga poorvi kalyani, kapi narayani, but their notable item was a Ragam Thanam Pallavi in dual ragas - vasantha and bhairavi - and they blended in ragas ananda bhairavi, sindhu bhairavi and chalaka bhairavi in the Pallavi ragamalika. They capped their performance with a Thillana in raga bindu malini. Accompaniments were provided by RK Shriram Kumar on the violin and K.Murugabhoopathy on the mridangam. Their improvisations and occasional departure from the well established “kutcheri” traditions were obviously enjoyable – the audience gave them rapturous applause.

O.S. Thiagarajan Nicknamed “Oh Yes”, Thiagarajan excels with his concert style in addition to pursuing a career in accounting with Shalimar Paints. Thiagarajan’s selection of songs and krithis this time round, were pleasing to the ear. He sang raga varali followed by khamas (sujana jeevana), manoranjitham (adugathara), kaapi (rama raghukula jalanidhi) and yadukula kamboji (hecchharika garara). The brilliance of raga alapana in karaharapriya in the krithi Chakkani Raja was outstandingly rendered and the neraval at kandigi sundara was elaborate and a very satisfying part of his concert. He concluded by singing raga behaag (Muruguanin maru peyar azhagu). The concert by Carnatica Brothers was a stark contrast to the traditional/ classical style of OS Thiagarajan – each enjoyable in their own right. Embar Kannan on the violin, Trichy Sankaran on the mridangam and SV Ramani on the ghatam were more than competent and added

1.Overseas and local artistes preparing to sing Pancharatna Krithi by Saint Thyagaraja

2. L-R : Trichy Sankaran, OS Thiagarajan, Embar Kannan

3. L-R: K Murugabhoopathi, SV Ramani, KN Sasikiran, Chitraveena Ganesh, RK Shriram Kumar

4. Nithyasree Mahadevan in concert

5. Violin Duet concert by Kalaimamani Kanyakumari & Embar Kannan, Thavil by Muthukumarasamy

6.Sudha Raghunathan in concert - Violin: Embar Kannan, Mridangam, Mannargudi Easwaran; Ghatam SV Ramani

Tambura: Sakthi Ravitharan

7. Manasi Prasad’s depicting the Life Journey of Meerabai

8. Vocalist: TM Krishna, Mridangam: Trichy

Sankaran Violin: RK Shriram Kumar

Tambura artistes: Nithya Ramesh and lustre to Thiagarajan’s concert.

The performances of Day One of the festival could be termed as absorbing and everyone went home with a bellyful of classical music.

Day Two was marked by joint singing of Saint Thyagaraja’s pancharatna krithis by well known as well as lesser known artistes. As always the pancharatna krithis evoked sentiments of bhakthi and brought out the saint’s unswerving devotion to Lord Rama.

V.K. Manimaran Well known for his resonant voice and adherence to the “sruti”, Manimaran gave a shorter concert in comparison to some of the big wigs. His rendering of Ananda nadamadum in raga poorvi kalyani and Siva chidambarame in raga nagaswaravali stood out. He also sang ragas maya malava gowlai, devagaandhari and keeravani - all crisp - to the accompaniment of Embar Kannan on violin and Mannargudi Easwaran on the mridangam. Manimaran has been performing regularly in most Chennai sabhas during the Academy music season and has received several accolades from Universities in Tamil Nadu and recognised musical forums. Kanyakumari and Embar Kannan This was a dual violin concert in the true guru/shishya parampara as Kalaimamani Kanyakumari is one of the senior most violinists in the industry, having played alongside Carnatic greats like MLV, Dr. N. Ramani, Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna and MS Subbalaxmi. The percussion accompaniment of thavil by Muthukumarasamy, mridangam by Murugabhupathi and ghatam by SV Ramani, was a unique feature of this concert. The resonance of the “thavil” easily attains 110 decibels without the microphone aiding the loudness. Kanyakumari started with a varnam in raga nattakurinji and then excelled in ragas suryakantham, nasikabhooshani and dwijavanthi. She and Embar Kannan were a class apart in the krithi Sri valli devasenapathey in raga nata bhairavi. The spontaneity of their neraval and swaras was captivating as was their combining and competing with each other. This concert was every bit a delight for the very knowledgeable audience. Kanyakumari and Embar Kannan concluded with the very pleasing Om namo narayana in raga karnaranjani.

Malladi Brothers Sree Rama Prasad and Ravi Kumar hail from Andhra Pradesh belonging to a family where devotion to music goes back three generations. They have Masters’ degrees in music and have been performing publicly for twenty years now. Their music is notable for the perfect matching of their voices and the bhava (singing with deep inner