Arangetram par excellence!

The mrudanga arangetram of Surya Raviganesh was held at the Rowville Secondary College on September 4.

Surya is the third student of Sridhar Chari’s Laya Vidhya Centre to do an arangetram, and the eminent vocalist Neyveli Santhanagopalan and violinist Vittal Ramamurthy from India performed for the occasion. They began with a Begada varnam, and followed it up with a Gowla, Ravichandrika and Poorvi Kalyani kritis. The magnum opus of the evening was the Dikshitar kriti Bala Gopala in Bhairavi, which the well known artistes from India delivered in all its beauty, lacing it with niravals and swaras. Surya played with confidence and finesse, and dazzled in the ‘tani avarttanam’ or the solo segment, weaving intricate patterns and in different tempos.

Santhanagopalan was strikingly large hearted: he constantly deflected the audience’s attention and applause to Surya, directing the limelight at him and praising his prowess at the mrudangam. Indeed, even his niravals and kalpana swaras were so rendered that they highlighted the debut mrudangist’s skills, rather than his own vocal mastery. The synergy between him – one of the foremost vocalists in Carnatic music today – and Surya, was remarkable: they communicated very well, and that Surya could respond fittingly spoke volumes about his confidence and skill. Male vocalists do allow mrudangists to play a wider range, and Surya made able use of it. His mrudangam seemed to ‘speak’ the swaras of the vocalist, and that is a tremendous achievement for anyone, leave alone a budding mrudangist. On the violin was Sri Vittal Ramamurthy, and the three artistes performed like seasoned veterans in sync, and with perfect understanding. That Santhanagopalan peppered the arangetram with long and complex kalapana swaras bothered Surya not in the least: he matched them swara for swara and mirrored the patterns in percussion. It was certainly one of the best arangetrams in Melbourne.

Abirami Kannan from Sydney, a pupil of Santhanagopalan, provided vocal support.

Chitra

Sudarshan

Iyer brothers honoured with prestigious award Melbourne based veena exponents, Ramnath and Gopinath

Iyer, popularly known as the Iyer Brothers were presented with a Service Delivery to Multicultural Victoria Award in the category of Arts on September 21, at the annual ceremony organised by the Victorian Multicultural Commission at the Government House.

The well-organised and well-attended event was attended by Premier of Victoria and the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Hon. John Brumby and the Governor of Victoria, Prof. David de Kretser.

Twin brothers Ramnath and Gopinath moved to Melbourne nearly 20 years ago and have carved a reputation for themselves as leading exponents of the veena in Australia and overseas. They play carnatic music which is exciting and complex, beautiful and challenging. Ramnath and Gopinath are disciples of Veena maestros Shri R. Pichumani Iyer and Trivandrum Late Shri R.Venkataraman.

The brothers established the Pichumani School of Carnatic Music in Melbourne in 1990, and have been teaching veena and vocal music to a dedicated group of over 40 students. They