2017 Feb 11 RanjaniGayathri HNBhaskar SaiGiridhar NGuruprassad @ RLKM (Spring Festival)

Vocal: Vid. RanjaniGayathri 
Violin: Vid. HNBhaskar 
Mridanga: Vid. SaiGiridhar 
Ghata: Vid. NGuruprassad 

Organiser: Sri Rama Lalita Kala Mandira
Occasion: Spring Festival

01 sarasija nAbha mAm pAhi varNa nATa Adi paramEShwara bhAgavathar

02 sharANu benakane kanaka rUpane bilahari Adi purandara dAsa (CS, S)
swara @ sharaNu benakane

03 arivAr yAr unnai arivAr mukhAri aruNAcala kavi

04 ninnu jeppa kAraNamEmi mandAri patnam subhramanya iyer (A, N, S)
nereval and swara @ ghanalOlaina vEnakTEsha

05 chEtah sri bAlakrishnam bhajarE dwijAvanthi rUpaka m.dikshithar

06 rAmA nIyeDa prEma rahitulaku kharaharapriyA Adi tyAgarAja (A, S, T)
swara@ pada sowkhya

07 DaNgUrava sArIrayya vasantha Adi p.dAsa

08 rAga tAna pallavi sarasAngi khaNDa tripuTa (chaturaSra , tiSra naDai   dwinaDai)
grahabEdha to ranjani (by gAyatri) during rAga AlApane
Pallavi Line: rAgarasa rAgayuta sarasa rasanE rAsa vilAse sarasAngi krite
Ragamalika Swara : Anandabhairavi, bahudAri, shubhapantuvarALi, kumdakriya, dEsh

09 Viruttum (kuLir mazhai kAkka...) (rAgamAlikA in dhanyAsi, valaji, kAnaDa ) followed by 
enna solli azhaittAl kAnaDa Ambujam Krishna

10 aparAdhi nAnalla rEvati purandara dAsa

11 atha kOTHe dAve mana mana abhang bhImpalAs tukArAm

12 nInAma rUpamulaku mangaLa sourAshtra Adi tyAgarAja

If even at 2045 when the concert is supposed to end, the audience are taking a sneak peek into the hall to find a seat to sit, then undoubtedly, it must be Ra Ga sister's delivering yet another stellar concert. Today was one such day where Bangalore Gayana Samaja's capacity was tested .

With hall filled to the brim 1 full hour before the concert, supplemented by the weekend factor, the sisters were in best of their form another extended concert to the delight of the audience and the organisers. Sisters gave an unforgettable nectarine concert to an "class" audience today, assisted by 2 students playing 2 tambUri for each one of them. 

The concert started on schedule, with a nATa varNa composed by paramEshwara bhAgavatar (although I was expecting one composed by PSI). 

The obesceince to Ganapathi was the apt choice through presenting a purandara dAsa composition in bilahari. The chiTTeswaras (im damn sure it was not a part of the original composition, probably added by the Sisters) and each enunciated sAhitya syllable demonstrated their perfunctory approach in mastering the kannada songs. The swaras @ sharaNu benakane was apt in the choice of cycles and duration. I belive it was their first presentation to a Kannada audience. The jump into chiTTeswaras with ri ga pa mA ga ri sa... added punch to the presentation.

They skipped the convetional AlApane for the 3rd song directly dwelling into a leisurely persentation of mukhAri kriti, an indication of the length of the concert to come. They were unhurried in their approach and emotive.

mandAri AlApane was well paced. Starting with lower speeds and registers, Vid. Ranjani traversed the 0.5 + 1.0 + 0.5 octaves with ease to bring out the essence of the rAga. There was no doubt during any part of the AlApane. Violin accompaniment left wanting more volume for the last row audience. Vid. HN Bhaskar on the violin was good and received abundant applause and frequently through the concert. Ninnu jeppa, the popular composition from PSI was the speedy presentation. The composition ended in a jiffy, inspite of being embellished by nereval and swaras at  ghanalOlaina vENkaTEsha.

chEtah Sri bAlaksrishnam, though a filler, was dealt in a leisurely pace. Sisters make it a point to have one druta gati and viLamba gati fillers in their concert, and today was no exception.

Kharaharapriya AlApane, by Vid gAyatri showcased the depth of creativity and strenth of spontenity. There were many moments of violin exactly replicating the AlApane sangaitis pepping her up to deliver more.  She efforlessly soaring from lower, middle and upper sthayi and seamless traversing between them quite frequently is a delight to watch, with violinist adding the finer touches as he followed like a shadow throughout the concert, especially in the AlApane. The hand signs to increase the violin volume fell on blind eyes of the sound engineer, who hardly made any changes to the volume level. It needed pin drop silence and high levels of attentiveness to grasp the violin returns throughout. Since it was long enough, it gave a clue of a possible pratimadhyama rAga RTP to follow.

rAmA ni yeDa had its full fledged embellishments. Nereval was done in multiple cycles, so was swaras. Vid. Sai Giridhar dominated the percussion support almost like an opening batsman playing with 11th man trying to save the match. There was hardly any opportunity for the non striking partner Vid. N Guruprassad, which I felt was unfair. 

Tani brought out the best of what Vid. N Guruprassad had in store, but could not show through the accompaniment for the songs till then.

Druta kAla filler , yet another kannada in rAga vasanta was delightful. 

Though I felt a higher traces of chArukEshi, sarasAngi rAga tAna shared by the sisters was a delight to listen. Till now, none of the rAgas had repetition to any of the previous concert on this stage during this season. Such was the meticulous preparation as they had the last possible slot to perform in this season.  This AlApane in tandem also swelled into grahabEda (ranjani / dharmavati?) showcasing their strong fundamentals.

They are known to take challenging pallavi, and today was no exception. The dwi-naDai pallavi in khaNDa tripuTa and a pretty long pallavi line with an eDupu challenged each one on the stage to be on their toes for the 30 minutes of pallavi rendition. Few rAgamAlika rounds were delivered leisurely. While most of them were popular, kumudakriya was announced at the end of its rendition.

Vote of thanks (which I usually dont review / speak about) deserves a mention for 2 reasons. Sri Krishna Prasad has been doing a yomen service to the cause of music. He deserves applause from the whole house for organising such a glitch free high quality SPRING FESTIVAL. God bless such organisers. It was also announced that SANGEETHA VEDANTA DHUREENA 2018 will be conferred on the Sisters, next year on the same day ! Even before the sentence was completed, the audience stood up to applaud, one of the longest that I had heard in today's concert. It was a surprise announcement, and the expression on the sister's face was worth a capture, which i missed being in the last rows of the hall today.

rAgamAlika viruttum (kuzhir mazhai kAkka... ) followed by enna solli by Ambujam Krishna and aparAdhi nAnalla in rEvati by purandara dAsa were fillers before the customary abhANG. 

An hour of waiting and 3.5 hrs of concert had not drained me either. Audience were still trying to thong inside the hall to get a glimpse of the stage. The song list shows you how they well deserve the award they would be conferred next year in this sabha. Wide selection in terms of composers, language, tALa is just a glimpse of their repoirtre. They are in the best of their form and one would not want to miss their 2 more visits in as many weeks to Bangalore in the near future. Looking forward for that.

Left with a feeling of 100% satisfaction, as I was accompanied by my K and G, who rarely join me in my concert exploration journeys.