A delightful concert

N Ramamoorthy, a young and renowned artiste of twin cities started the annual music festival at Kanakaraju gari thota, Malkajgiri as a part of Sadguru Sri Thyagaraja Swami’s 169th Aradhana celebrations

As part of the Sadguru Sri Thyagaraja Swami’s 169th birth anniversary ‘Aradhana’ celebrations, Sadguru Sri Thyagaraja Aradhana Utsava Samithi of Malkajgiri inaugurated their 27th annual music festival at Kanakaraju gari thota in the area. The first day of the weeklong celebrations, stared with a vocal concert by N Ramamoorthy, a young and renowned artiste of twin cities.

He opened the concert with a pleasant ‘Manasa etulorthune’ of Thyagaraja in Malayamarutam, a janya raga of Chakravakam, breaking the tradition of starting a concert with a varnam, which is welcome. It was well presented without any frills. In fact, it needs to be appreciated to have started the concert with this raga as it is a good choice on a hot summer evening. This opening piece showed signs of what can be expected in the rest of the concert.

Later, he moved on to ‘Daarini telusukonti’, a tough and melodious kriti of Thyagaraja, in Sudha Saveri, a janya of Harikambhoji. This is one of the Tiruvottiyur Pancharatna kritis composed by Saint Thyagaraja. Ramamoorthy made sure that the important sangathis of Pallavi are covered and presented well with apt kalpanaswaras. A brief alapana would have definitely added glitter to this otherwise wonderful piece. Besides, it would have given an opportunity to the audience to guess the raga.

He followed this with a very pleasant surprise in the form of the famous ‘Raga sudharasa’ of Thyagaraja in Andolika, another janya of Harikambhoji. This too got deserved treatment and attention by the artiste. There are very few compositions in this raga and this is one of them. The beauty of the raga and kriti were well brought out with neat presentation.

Moving on to prati madhyamam side of the mela spectrum, he chose to present ‘Jnanamosagarada’ in Poorvikalyani, a janya of Gamanashrama, the 53rd melakarta. Poorvikalyani is one of the few famous, melodious and popular janya ragas in the second half the mela chart. He brought out the essence of the kriti with a good sahithya bhavam coupled with a melodious alapana.

Before moving on to the main item, he presented ‘Nee chittamu’, a misra chapu kriti of Thyagaraja in Dhanyasi. It was a short one and finished before it got digested. The main item he chose to present was yet again another number of Thyagaraja. It was ‘Enduku peddalavale’ in the majestic Sankarabharanam.

He could demonstrate his command over the raga with a sweet alapana and could produce soothing effect with interlacing notes for a lively presentation of the kriti, appended with dexterous swarakalpana and clear diction. Tania vartnam was attractive.

Ramamoorthy has a presentable and commanding voice and his adherence to sruti and laya was his asset. The selection of kritis and the choice of talas usually has an effect on the overall quality of the concert and it applies to this concert too, resulting in a memorable one. And it turned out to be technically sound and impactful.

Ramamoorthy ended the concert rightly with ‘Laali Yugave’ in Neelambari, a beautiful number of Thyagaraja, in roopaka talam. He is cool, energetic and focused throughout the concert with no unnecessary emotions and deviations. Dinakar on violin provided the much needed support to elevate the standard of the concert and he demonstrated his ability well throughout. Sriram on mridangam is a veteran and needs no words to mention about his valuable support along with Srikanth on Ghatam, thus making the concert a lively and enjoyable one.