TYME for talent

The Talented Young Musicians Ensemble (TYME) showcased four cameo performances at the Spring Concert held recently at the Kel Watson Theatre, Forest Hill organised by the Academy of Indian Music, Australia.

The first and second segments comprised of two of Narmatha Ravichandhira’s senior violin students from the Sruthilaya Kendra, (Divya Pillutla and Narayanan Ramakrishnan) performing solo pieces for 45 minutes each. Both these performances reflected a sound understanding of the raga alapana, swara kalpana and talam. Some of the pieces performed included Maha ganapathim in ragam Nattai, Samajavara Gamana in Hindolam ragam and a Thillana in Mand ragam. It was a pleasure to hear the warming melodious tunes accompanied by a high calibre percussion ensemble provided by senior mridangam students, many of whom had completed their formal debuts several years ago.

The third segment was a very unique and pleasing collaborative work by Sruthilaya Kendra, performed by students of the multifaceted Guru Smt Narmatha Ravichandhira and Guru Sri Ravi M Ravichandhira, with the Baratalaya Academy.

The students of Guru Smt Sivaganga Sahathevan harmonized their spirits, talents and dedication with their ensemble of veenai and violin strings, and their vocal chords feasted together in a garland of ragas set to five different rhythmic cycles. In this piece, a combined carnatic music choir of over 30 violin players, with rhythm by six students of Sri Ravi M. Ravichandhira, including his sons Sai Nivaeithan and Sai Sarangan; with Lukshman Ganesh, Hari Ravindran, Lojen Wijeyamanoharan - all on the mridangam, as well as Keshav Yoganathan (tabla) Sashilan Ravirajan (ghatam).

Ms. Maxine Morand, Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development and Minister for Women’s Affairs who was the Guest of Honour, addressed the audience and applauded Sri Ravi and Srimathy Narmatha Ravichandhira with high praise for their aspirations, far reaching vision, commitment and resounding success in delivering quality music and dance. They were commended for developing a powerful fine arts infrastructure that is currently enjoyed by a vast number of Australians, youth and the many newly migrated artists residing in Australia.

She added that she was mesmerised by the violin performance and congratulated the orchestra who sang in a mixture of two of TYME for providing a fantastic avenue to gain experience in performing to a large and wider cross-section of the community, including mainstream audience and extending their knowledge and appreciation for carnatic music to all.

The orchestrated compositions were set to tune by Sri. Rajkumar Bharathi, great grandson of the revolutionary Tamizh poet Subramanya Bharathi. The first part, in Ragam Naashikaabooshani and Tala Adi, was a Vivadhi ragam that contains Vivadi swarams that go against the usually practiced grain of thought or approach and take over the place of another swaram. Although vivadi pitches are generally to be avoided during the playing of a given raga, they are occasionally added by skilled performers in order to introduce some colour to an interpretation.

The second part, was a Ragamalika in Panchanadai, which is to say that it is composed in parts of more than one raga or melody and set to five different rhythms. This composition has taken ragams which are very popular in Carnatic music for their soothing melody and rhythmically challenging, and interspersed with melodic and rhythmic outlines of individual instruments to accentuate the colours of each raga and thala, heightened the experience for all present.

The fourth segment highlighted the artistic merit of Smt Narmatha Ravichandhira who composed both the music (in Rasikapriya) and dance choreography to a new composition by Smt Ranee Thangaraja, sung skilfully by Sri Ahilan. Dancing to the piece was Vithiya Yogeswaran, a senior student of Smt Ravichandhira who completed her formal debut some years ago. She also danced elegantly to kriti Periya Swami Thooran Konchi Konchi va kuhane rendered mellifluously by Jayshree in raga Kamas. It was very encouraging to see that a group of young students (Archana Sivanandakumar Thejaani Aran Karthica Nanthakumaran Mathura Nadanakumar,Thirushika Ganeshanathan Syndy Sivalingam,Varshini Thayalakumaran Vinoja Ganeshanathan) who were coached by her danced well to a folk tune.

Ravi Ravichandhira