Scintillating recital by Malladi Trio

Malladi Trio, comprising Malladi Suribabu along with his sons, Srirama Prasad and Ravi Kumar, presented a beautiful recital at the Sadguru Thyagaraja Swamy Aradhantosavalu of the 16th Annual Cultural Festival organised by Sri Chandrasekharendra Sangeetha Educational Society.

In the morning, a gathering of 350 odd musicians participated in the Thyagaraja Pancharatna Keerthana Gosthi Ganam in which the greats of two States participated. Besides the Malladi Trio, Ayyagari Syama Sundaram, Komanduri Seshadri, Raghavachary (Hyderabad Brothers), Vidushis Umadevi, Neetha Chandrsekhar, Radha Sarangapani, Seshulatha, Ambuja, Sarada, Nendraganti Krishnamohan, PV Subbarao, Dr KS Venkatachari Suri Venkateswarlu, Kokkonda Subrahmanaya Sarma, MLN Raju, Nemani, Haribabu and many others participated and rendered Pancha Ratna krithis while every keerthana’s essence was vivified by Malladi Suribabu as a prelude.

“Dorakuna Itivanti Seva”, a concept devised by Musician Malladi Suribabu to popularise Divyanama and utsava sampradaya keerthanas of Thyagaraja, was put to use by the Malladis. In a nutshell, Thyagaraja’s lyrics covers many aspects such as Vedic thoughts, Puranic episodes and a devotee’s uprightness and admitting faults with all the humility. Malladi and his sons rendered “Koluvai Unnadey” and other Divyanama and utsava sampradaya keerthanas which the august audience enjoyed greatly.

Another Malladi vocal duet

A vocal duet by the Malladi sisters-in-law, Malladi Vasavi (d/o Malladi Suribabu) and Malladi Nagalakshmi(w/o Malladi Ravikumar), proved to be a modest attempt. In the one hour long concert, the two vocalists first rendered “Ninuvina Sukhamugana” (Thodi) and “Lokavana Chatura” (Begada).

As the main item the vocalists chose “Chitra Ratna Maya” in Kharaharapriya. The duo’s ragalapana and swarakalpana were good. Continued practice will definitely benefit the vocalists. NC Ananthakrishna (violin) and Gunaranjan (mridangam) gave good instrumental support.

Flute recital by Jayaprada

Jayaprada Ramamurthy is a sought after flutist in the country with an expertise in using the Southern and Hindusthani Flutes with equal eminence. Jayaprada gave a thrilling and energised flute recital on the concluding day which proved to be a grand finale for the festival.

Jayaprada started the recital with “Vathapi Ganapathim Bhaje” (hamsadhwani) of Deekhitar in adi thala with a seasoned ragalapana using base flute to convey the emotion of the lyrics. She touched “MarivarayDikkevrayya” (Latangi), “Marugelara Oh Raghava” (Jayanthisri) and “Vasudevaya Yani” (Kalyani) in equal eminence. She took Ragam Thanam Pallavi (RTP) in valaji ragam, pallavi chosen as “Kumara Guruvara Sadasiva Sada Sarana Bhava”.

It was a flow of ragalapana; an astute thanam with scintillating swarakalpana amused the audience with repeated applause. Krishna Chaitanya and G Chakrapani (violin), P Balasubramaniam (mridangam) and Maruthi Raghuram (kanjira) gave an excellent instrumental support to Jayaprada’s recital.

By:Chivukula Rama Mohan