Vishnudev’s musical expertise came to the fore in his recent concert

K.S. Vishnudev exhibits stage dynamics along with a fine display of vidwat and aesthetics — by aesthetics I mean his excellent judgement of how and to what extent to present a raga or a kriti. This applies to his RTPs too. He recently performed a concert for the Patri School of Percussion at Srinivasa Sastri Hall.

He began with ‘Siddhi Vinayakam’ (Shanmukhapriya also known as Chamaram, Muthuswami Dikshitar). The artiste chose the line ‘Prasiddha gana nayakam’ for swaraprastara.

Next, the singer took up a Tyagaraja kriti ‘Rama ninne namminanu’ in raga Husseni, where the saint-composer pleads for Rama’s grace. Following this, the vocalist presented a splendidly wrought ‘Janani ninnuvina’ (Ritigowla, Subbaraya Sastri). This kriti has a beautiful swara-sahitya.

Vishnudev Namboodri accompanied by Advaith Ilavajhala (mridangam), Varadarajan (violin) and Nerkunam Sankar (kanjira).
| Photo Credit:
SRINATH M

A filler ‘Sarasa sama dana’ (Kapinarayani, Tyagaraja) breezed in before the ragam tanam pallavi. The pallavi is an example of a palindrome in the sahitya, in the notes and in the tala. The tala was in a complex pattern: 3,4,5 beats and followed by 5,4,3 in reverse order. Before the pallavi ‘Sarasa nayana sarasa sarathara ratharasa’, the singer and the violinist came up with a well-etched Sarasangi alapana and tanam. After niraval and trikala in the pallavi, Vishnudev rounded it off with kalpanaswaras.

During his debut performance, young mridangist Advaith Ilavajhala got the opportunity to accompany senior vocalist Vishnudev Namboodri.
| Photo Credit:
SRINATH M

Violinist Varadarajan essays were soaked in melody. The tani that followed showcased the skill of young mridangist Advaith Ilavajhala in his arangetram performance. A disciple of mridangam vidwan Patri Satish Kumar, he tried to rise up to challenges even as senior kanjira artiste Nerkunam Sankar handled with finesse complex rhythms.