Plan all you want..

The post on attending the spring concert season is here.. 

This year both SIFA and Sankritilaya had an impressive series of performances lined up. Had planned to go to as many of these as possible, including some "double headers". It is one thing to listen to one 3 or 3 1/2 hour concert. Listening to back to back concerts with only a 30 minute break is a very immersive experience. 

It is like doing a hot yoga double. The first class is the warm up for the second class. You are more flexible in the second class but you don't have the same strength. Something along same lines happens at these double headers. You start to close your eyes and completely enjoy the second concert but you zone out too often. 

Got to hear one vocal concert outside of SIFA and Sankritilaya. It was our friends son's mridangam arangetram. He did us all proud. The vocal for his arangetram was by Ranjani Ravindrabharathy (his guru's daughter). She sang amazingly well. She is going to be a rock star in her own right. We got to attend her guru's daughters concert as well as part of the fall lineup! We hope to see our friends kid keep up his performance as well. 

The concerts I managed to go to this season..

Ashwath Narayanan

Ramakrishnan Murthy

Anahita and Apoorva

Trichur brothers

Vignesh Ishwar

Sriranjani Santhanagopalan

It is not just the main artists but all the supporting artists that were amazing. Charumathi Raghuraman and Vishvesh Chandrasekaran were just amazing! Look forward to them doing violin concerts in the near future. 

There are a few concerts I wanted to go to but missed. Yet again, missed a Sanjay Subramanyan concert. That was scheduled the exact week we had to go drop the kids in SoCal. We did not know that both our kids would end up in quarter system schools with a late start. Missed it.. maybe next year..

There is a concert today as well, but could not go. Hence the "closing post" for concert season. Hope my friends who made it are enjoying it right now.

A few pieces that stuck to my head for a full week before the next concert.. Vignesh did a RTP of Dikshidar's 14 raga masterpiece, Shri vishwanadham bajeham. First time hearing a Thanam for all 14 ragams, live. That was a standout. 

Sriranjani sang Vanchatonuna almost like a haunting melody. 

Ashwath sang a song called Shonaiyum kaathu nal aanaiyum kaathtu. Have never heard this before. The lyrics were just amazing and he sang this ragamalika so well. He also sang Karaharapriya for an hour and it was the best I heard in recent times. 

Thrichur brothers sang an RTP in Jog. Pat myself on the back for boldly guessing it was Jog when my friends were guessing it as closer south Indian popular ragas. All I had was one familiar phrase from Pramadhavanam (from His Highness Adbullah) to go with. Was so happy I guessed right! They also sang Bo Shambo with the audience participating. The crowd was dancing. The bros are on to something. Between them and RaGa, these are artists today that are trying to spread the reach of carnatic music and give it a mass appeal to reach a non technical audience. Sincerely commend their effort!

Anahita and Apoorva sang in Kalavathi. Had never heard this one before. They also sang Kaa vaa vaa extremely well. It stayed in my head..

Ramakrishnan Murthy was outstanding in every piece he sang. He may well and truly be the first US born kid to become a Sangeetha Kalanidhi. What a talent. He sang Chinnanjiru kiliye as a ragamalika, but with a twist. He used different ragams than the ones Bharathiyaar used. Some of us liked it. Everyone has heard that as a kid and the tunes just stick. Swithing to a different ragam and singing it so well is a challenge. It did cause a debate post concert.. especially with the older generation! 

It is good that the bay area gets to see these performances. Next year, plan to take jr. with me to some of these concerts whenever she happens to visit. 

Can't wait to see next year's lineup!

Sometimes all you have to do... is listen!

One of the advantages of living in the bay area is the significant local population that is interested in South Indian Classical music. 

We have two organizations that have memberships and have a concert(Kutchery) series announced early enough. The main one is SIFA or South India Fine Arts and the other one is Sankrirthi Laya. Then there are the other one off concerts where you buy direct tickets for artists who do just one or two concerts!

This spring concert season in bay area starts when all the artists have done performing in Chennai and Mumbai and they migrate to the bay area when the temperatures just start to be manageable compared to Chennai. They end up starting in California and go east as the weather warms up there. 

Have been treated to a wonderful concert list. Most of these concerts are on Sunday, some being on Saturday. It is almost a concert every weekend for 12 weeks. Made it a point to attend almost all of the vocal or instrumental ones. Skipped the dance programs. 

Given my knee was already hurting and inflamed for most of spring, sitting in one place for 4 hours for each concert, not to mention the lines to get seated.. the carpooling with friends back and forth to venue, each concert was a 5 1/2 to 6 hour commit. Given the interest with my friends, we went as a group! The group is 5 ladies and me. Apparently only one person in each of those families manages to sit in one place for 4 hours! Given the ladies color coordinated their Sari's for every concert, they would even publish the color in our whatsapp group and where possible I would even wear a T-shirt in their color of choice. All said and done, I had a lot of fun attending the concerts. 

Most of them were amazing, some were like "meh" and one we left 30 minutes before concert ended as one of the carpoolers had to take care of an urgent issue at home. Somehow we were all okay leaving that one early. 

Here is the list that I attended in the order

Violin concert by Lalgudi siblings

Vocal by Kalyanapuram S. Aravind

Vocal by Sudha Raghunathan (this was not through the memberships but a concert organized for fund raising for OPEN education).. she did more of a lec dem than a traditional concert

Vocal by Saketaraman

Vocal by Abhishek Raghuram 

Vocal by Malladi Brothers

A special "carnatic'y concert based on Ilayaraja songs by RaGa (Ranjani Gaythri) which had discounted tickets thanks to SIFA! Added bonus was that I got to take Jr. who had just landed from college the previous day!

Vocal by Amrutha Venkatesh

Vocal by Gayathri Venkataraghavan 

This pretty much wrapped up Spring season. Fall season begins in September!

When you get to listen to all these artists and their accompaniment artiss on voilin, mrudhangam, tabla, ghatam, kanjira .. you are in for a treat in every concert. 

Listening to the different styles, the way the artists express themselves in each piece, their mastery of their craft and in some cases the amazing syncronization between two artists, gives you a subconsicous understanding of what these ragas make you feel. Going to concerts is also a good learning experience, when you and your friends are chatting on the whatsapp group trying to race to identify the raga for the song or the concept being tried. We discuss the concert on the way home! Sometimes my friends and the jokes pre or post concert add more to the experience than the concert itself. 

When I get to write more, will key in my thoughts on each of these concerts and the special lightbulb moments!

The good thing in these concerts was the number of parents who managed to get their kids to sit and listen. Sometimes it is tough to keep them in one place. For the most part the kids sat, listened, guessed ragams, sang along in places and their smiling faces in the audience made it all the more interesting. Carnatic music wil definitely survive another generation at least based on the audience stats!

The regular memberships for SIFA is 160 USD for a year and Sankritilaya is 75 USD. You get ~12 and ~8 concerts for that a year! If you get to attend most of the concerts, you get your monies worth! Trick is in clearing your weekend calendar and prioritizing this over other events.  My family has been extremely supportive in letting me disappear all evening for this many days! They do it because I come home with a song on my lips and have a happy high for a day or two post concert! That means they have to deal with regular me only for 5 days a week.. Given a choice they would send to a concert every three days. 

They say "katradhu kai mann alavu, kallaadhadhu ulagalavu!" (what you have learned so far is comparable to a fist full of sand, what you are yet to learn is as vast as the earth). Even though we familiarize ourselves with as many ragas as possible, in every concert we learned a new ragam and what it sounds and feels like! 

The listening continues, as does the learning!

If you are a bay area parent trying to get your kids interested in learning Carnatic or South Indian classical music, do avail yourself of these memberships in the organizations and give your kids a chance to hear these wonderful artists. They will definitely enjoy and take an interest!

My film song singing definitely improves over time as my Carnatic singing progresses. Given time constraints and the knee issues, have not been singing movie songs to the extent I used to. That will pick up in the next three months!

Here's to more music listening!