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Section Synopsis
NEWS & NOTES
Festival in memory of Yagnaraman
- MANNA SRINIVASAN
An impressive function was got up at the Nalli Gana Vihar in Chennai on 30th June, heralding yet another annual event at the Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, which already has a continuously active schedule.
Organised to pay tribute to the sustained and significant services rendered by the late R. Yagnaraman, the occasion was used to express appreciation, confer honours for the accomplishments and contributions of some eminent artists, and to recognise some outstanding young talents. The awards were instituted this year by the Sabha in memory of Yagnaraman, its General Secretary from 1956-2007.
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Alapana's focus on talented youth
- A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Talented young musicians and dancers were given opportunities to perform in the four-day Yuva Mahotsava organised by Alapana
Trust (founder-trustee O.S. Arun) in association with Indian Overseas Bank. The festival was held from 9th to 12th June at
the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan auditorium in Chennai. There were three performances every evening with each youngster getting a
one-hour slot. Young musicians and dancers from Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai were featured in the youth festival.
The inaugural function had eminent musicians and dancers like vidwan M. Balamuralikrishna, and Chitra Visweswaran, who
applauded Alapana for its efforts to provide a forum to young artists and also pay them reasonably well. The inauguration
was followed by a dance ballet titled Varanasi performed by Jyotsna Shourie’s Dance Centre, Delhi. It was a many-layered
show with music and dance, voice-overs, stills and film footage, and good music by O.S. Arun who had intelligently used
different percussion instruments to enhance the mood.
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Percussive Arts Centre honours Pattammal
- KUSUMA RAO
Founded by Bangalore K. Venkataram in 1981, Percussive Arts Centre (PAC) has been serving the cause of music with special
reference to percussion instruments. This year, PAC celebrated the 27th international percussive arts festival and music
conference as also the birth anniversary of Palani Subramania Pillai from 9th to 13th July at the Gayana Samaja in Bangalore.
Scholars, musicians and percussionists took part in the event which was well organised.
The festival was inaugurated by Justice N. Santosh Hegde, Lokayukta, Karnataka. The chief guest Sri Veereshaananda Saraswati
Swamiji of the Ramakrishna Vivekananda ashram released the PAC souvenir. The awards were presented on the valedictory day.
Prof. M.R. Doreswamy, MLC Karnataka and founder-chairman of PES institutions, Bangalore, presented the Lifetime Achievement
awards to eminent musicians. The Palghat Mani Iyer Memorial award and the Bangalore K. Venkataram Memorial award were
presented to mridanga vidwan Madurai T. Srinivasan, and the eminent musicologist Dr. R. Satyanarayana respectively. Because
of her inability to travel to Bangalore, the Palani Subramania Pillai Centenary award along with the title of Laya Kalaa
Nipuna was presented to the legendary nonagenarian vocalist D.K. Pattammal at her residence on 3rd August in Chennai.
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From the neo-classical to comic genius
- B.R.C. IYENGAR
The "Five-day mega musical festival" of Sri Lakshmi Narayana Seva Samiti started with an inaugural concert by vidwan
M. Balamuralikrishna. The Samiti conducts these concerts off and on to raise funds to renovate the ancient temple at
Secunderabad. In this context, the dedicated service of Seshadri, the secretary, needs a word of praise. This year's
festival included, besides Balamurali, other artists like Gayathri Sankaran, Gayathri Venkataraghavan, Vasundhara Rajagopal
and M.S. Anantharaman (violin solo). The much-awaited concert of doyen Balamurali kept the audience spellbound for two hours,
although a good hour was lost in the rituals of speeches and felicitations. Balamurali is a genius of different calibre,
who has embarked on a new enterprise — a discovery of classical music of the past and the recreation through the embarking
of a neo-classical style. As a neo-classicist he has paid homage both to the melodic sensibility and the forms favoured by
the new generation, which wanted something new, something totally different. He seems determined to make history, to use
it for whatever attracts or inspires him at that moment, whatever the occasion or the circumstance, and to use it to create
a new work — a designed playfulness of his own works. He has thus moved outside the conventional stream to some extent.
In the evolution of music, he has cut a niche of his own. He is not necessarily for or against, to contribute or confirm,
sustain or destroy a tradition. If his neo-classical style is commented as idiosyncratic, he is least perturbed. It is a
paradox-packed, self-imposed music.
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On top Down Under
- SHOBHA SEKHAR
A galaxy of stars adorned the Sydney skies during the Sydney Festival 2008. One of the stars who dazzled with her brilliant
exposition of Carnatic music Down Under is Aruna Sairam.
Aruna came, sang, and conquered the hearts of audiences in Sydney and Melbourne during her concerts both at the Sydney
Festival on 8th June (Sydney Music Festival organised by Swara Laya, Sydney) and in Melbourne on 14th June (under the
auspices of CMC Melbourne).
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COVER STORY
The odyssey of Odissi
Globalisation sets trends
- LEELA VENKATARAMAN
Was it only the other day, in the 1940s, that we heard the saying in Orissa "Salaba bae, nirlaja gae, atialajuka nachaku jae"
(the one who is modest plays instruments, the one without shame sings and the utterly shameless goes in for dance)! Now barely
seventy years later, close on the heels of an international festival of Odissi held in Washington by an Indian do-gooder and
enthusiast Pratap Das, comes yet another international event titled “Stirring Odissi” the brainchild of Malaysian dancer Ramli
Ibrahim, mounted at Kuala Lumpur. While the juxtaposing of dancers hailing from Malaysia, India, United States, Switzerland, U.K.,
U.S.A., and Japan made for a varied range of Odissi expressions — traditional, innovative, contemporary and even post modern, it
was interesting to see what globalisation was doing to the dance.
Cross pollination
Even as Odissi is creating space for itself in different parts of the world, Orissa continues to be possessive about the
"Ame Odiya" (We are Oriya) aspect of the dance. Liberties taken with "tradition" (though the dance itself is a reconstruction
of the fifties) are frowned upon. This has not prevented dancers from outside Orissa trying out new work. While the
dance/painting connection has retreated into the backwaters of the mind for many, this aspect was particularly brought out in
the exhibition of paintings and photography, all inspired in different parts of the world, by the lyricism of Odissi. For
example Loo foh Sang's Malaysian figures and faces in bodily attitudes typical of Odissi in works like Mirror of Gesture, Tales
of dancers, and Odissi, Bandha by Jeganathan Ramachandran of Malaysia, Jatin Das's sensuous Alasya Kanya, Abhisarika and
Tarijham, and A.V. Ilango's very strong lines were all Odissi based. Chennai based photographer Kartik Venkatraman's Raudra,
Horses of Soorya and, the arresting figurative work of Bayu Utomo Radjikin, Chu Li's unforgettable camera images, Malaysian
Eric Peris’s unforgettable digital prints "Prana", Iqbal Singh Saqqu's wonderful photographs of Sutra artists in works like
Ragesree born of Kama, and several others showed the kind of inspiration painting and photography have drawn from Odissi. By
far the boldest statement on the global Odissi situation lay in the paintings of Orissa's Dinanath Pathy. In his Vintage
Odissi, an Odissi dancer is pictured performing on the bonnet of a vintage car. In Rethinking Odissi in the USA Destiny Lab,
there are dancers in typical tahia-adorned hairdo, clad in tight shorts. Daughter of a Mahari is suffused with the same note of
irony. Here classical dance seems an anachronism. Curated by Orissa's Dinanath Pathy and Sivarajah Natarajan of Malaysia, the
exhibition at Galerie Petronas, with its sheer size and spread, illustrated the cross-pollination between artistic streams.
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SPECIAL FEATURE
A CENTENARY TRIBUTE
Dandapani Desigar
From temple song to the summits of music
-VAMANAN
A humble temple singer and teacher of religious hymns to children, he went on to become a celluloid hero, charismatic
classical performer and university music professor. He not only set high standards of teaching but also carved a niche for
himself in musical innovation and composition. Here is a tale of continuing re-invention by a man of poor resources who
did not go beyond the pyol school in his village but eventually became an icon of the Tamil isai movement. He did well by
himself too, securing the best of bargains in a status and wealth conscious society.
M.M. Dandapani Desigar (1908-1973). Thirty-five years after his passing, his ringing voice and evocative Tamil song continue
to inspire artists and activists in the cause of ethnic Tamil music in his birth centenary year. In a milieu where language
and culture have become focal points of identity and politics, the resonant example of Dandapani Desigar is a continuing
source of inspiration. Some mainstream musicians too recognise his musical worth and value his Tamil oeuvre.
He was known as Desigar for short. The word refers to the community that rendered the Tamil hymnal offerings in Tamil Nadu
temples from the times of the imperial Cholas, who made endowments for the cause. Temple singers were called Oduvar-s
(renderers from the canon of Tamil devotional hymns known as the Tirumurai). Their ranks were mainly filled by the Desigars,
but also by members of the Saiva Vellala community schooled in the traditional style of singing. Each big Siva temple has a
handful of Oduvar-s who recite from a part of the Tirumurai known as the Tevaram (the first seven books of the canon) at
the various periods of worship.
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MAIN FEATURE
Kamala at seventy five
Blooming in an alien land
Famed in India as "Kumari Kamala" during her prime as a dancer, the acclaimed Bharatanatyam exponent has dedicated about seven
decades of her life to its propagation. Endowed with a rare and uncommon prowess at the art, her name has become synonymous
with the dance form. She began performing classical dances in many Indian films in several languages, including Hindi, since the
late 1930s at the age of five, till about the mid-1960s. One of her best known films includes, Naam Iruvar in Tamil, based on
the patriotic songs of Tamil poet Subramania Bharati. Kamala has given thousands of stage performances in India, and was the
country's unofficial cultural envoy to many different countries. At the Indian government's behest, she performed before many
visiting foreign dignitaries to India, including President Dwight Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth. Kamala Narayan received the
central Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 1968 and was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1970. The elderly artist who turned 75 on 14th
June this year, has been living in the New York metropolitan area since 1980 and runs a dance school, Sri Bharata Kamalalaya.
On the occasion of the 28th anniversary of Kamala's dance school in New York, UMA DANDAPANI gives us a glimpse into Kamala's life in the United States.
Kamala Narayan seemed to morph from deities chiselled in graceful stances inside a temple sanctum. Images in black and white from
decades ago, of the young and lithe dancer captured in statuesque poses, became vivid and real, as she choreographed for a
recent show by the students of her school, at the Yonkers Public Library auditorium in Westchester County, New York. Her school,
Sri Bharata Kamalalaya, is based in Long Island, New York, where she has lived since 1980, but the septuagenarian with an
unflagging passion for the art, commutes weekly to Westchester County and New Jersey, to conduct dance lessons for her young
students.
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WAY OF LIFE
Peter Pannke: "My music is my life"
-K. K. GOPALAKRISHNAN
PETER PANNKE, a renowned German musician-cum-writer and exponent of dhrupad, was recently in India for Ayurveda treatment in Kerala and for a few musical interactions in Delhi and Mumbai.
It was eight thirty in the evening. At one of the resorts on the banks of the fast dying river Nila, in Cheruthuruthy village
near Kerala Kalamandalam in Trissoor, ten people assembled after an 'ayurvedic dinner'. Peter Pannke, the celebrated European
musician, dhrupad exponent and author, invited renowned Bangalore-based sculptor Balan Nambiar, Sanskrit professor Heidrun
Bruckner, Chair of Indology, University of Wurzburg in Germany, and me for dinner followed by his chamber concert for an
hour. Nambiar and I were the only Indians. Other invitees included the prominent German litterateur Ilija Trojanow, whose
latest novel The Collector of Worlds has already been translated into 27 languages, and Thomas Ott, the Chair of music of
Cologne University. Peter wanted to celebrate the final day of his successful Ayurveda treatment. When he sang four
compositions, including one of his own, for an hour, the mellifluousness dispelled from our minds the swansong of the
dying river close by. The occasional mosquito bites too did not bother us.
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POINT OF VIEW
Musician-musicologist syndrome
-T. SRINIVASA RAJAGOPALAN
Of late the musician-musicologist divide has come to the fore. Baffling indeed for the music lover. Dictionaries define the
former as one good in music and the latter as (one adept mine) in the study of music and musical theories. On the face of it
it is clear that both are not one and the same. What then is the difference between the two?
Broadly speaking, we may say that at the performance level the musician is a singer, not just a singer who reproduces kriti-s or
songs at the cinematic level, but much more. The musician knows the grammar of Carnatic/classical music quite well or at least
to an appreciable degree. If we say that the musicologist is better equipped in theoretical knowledge than the musician, are we
correct? We have to pause and think before we jump to conclusions.
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RECORD RACK
THAMIZHAGA ISAI MAHANGAL
- ANNAM
THAMIZHAGA ISAI MAHANGAL — 'A who is who of Composers of Carnatic music'. DVD. Tamil. Conceived and produced by Usha Subramanian.
Compiled by Rajan S. Sarma. [Subha Creation, Chennai. Rs. 299.]
This is an innovative effort, to inform about and promote interest in Carnatic music, as evolved in the Tamil country. It focuses on
reaching out to the younger generation. The narration is through interviews and demonstrations by eminent musi-cians and scholars. While
a few of them like Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, Maharajapuram Santhanam, P.B. Srinivos, Vani Jairam, R. Vedavalli and T.M. Soundararajan, are
featured on the DVD cover, they include many others like Sujatha Vijayaraghavan, Prameela Gurumurthi, and Lalgudi Swaminathan. The
demonstration component includes selected singing and dance interpretation, and scripts from films.
AZHAGA — his beauty. By Bombay Jayashri. Vocal. 3-CD Pack. Recording of a Concert held in 2006. [Rajalakshmi Audio. RACDV 06168/69/70. Rs. 450.]
- ANNAM
ANTARDHWANI — Song of the Soul. By R. Visweswaran. Vocal and Instrumental. Two CD pack. [Chidambaram Academy of Performing Arts, Chennai. email: < vichitra50@gmail.com >. Rs. 300.]
- ANNAM
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GENERATION NEXT
Amrutha Venkatesh
This young vocalist from Bangalore has been impressing audiences everywhere. A student of science in a Bangalore college, she
started performing at the age of six and has over 250 concerts to her credit.
Amrutha, who started training with M.T. Selvanarayanan of AIR-Bangalore at the age of four, continues to learn from him. Charumathi Ramachandran has also been coaching her for over nine years. Amrutha has also learnt to play the veena
from Suma Sudhindra.
Charumathi Raghuraman
Twenty-year old Charumathi Raghuraman is among the more talented young violinists on the Carnatic music scene.
Born in Mumbai in 1987, Charumathi, who had access to her elder sister Rashmi’s violin, showed musical awareness and grasp even as a five-year-old. Her mother, a music graduate and vocalist, noted that Charumathi exhibited
inborn musical awareness and grasp from the age of five. She was placed under the care of Guru N. Krishnan
(BRRS, Mumbai). When she was eight, Sangita Kalanidhi T.N. Krishnan spotted Charu in a violin workshop at
NCPA, Mumbai, and graciously offered to train her. Charu made repeated trips to Chennai over the next four years
to have a grounding in sound violin technique. She shifted permanently to Chennai in 1999 for further learning. In
vocal music, she had early grooming from eminent teacher T.R. Balamani of Mumbai. She has been pursuing
vocal music training under Sangita Acharya P.S. Narayanaswamy for the past seven years.
N. Srikanth
A Bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, Bhagavata Mela artist, and actor — all rolled into one is
N. Srikanth.
Born on 15th June 1972, Srikanth hails from Melattur — a village renowned for the Bhagavata Mela natakam. His
father M.R. Krishnamurthy has been a Bhagavata Mela artist for the past five decades. As is the tradition in
these families, Srikanth was put through his first steps at a very young age, and has been on stage since the age of
six, when he made his debut as Bhoomi Devi. He went on to play the roles of Parvati and Prahlada as a young
boy. Every summer he joins the troupe which congregates at Melattur and he has now specialized in playing
female lead roles in the natakam-s.
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NEWS YOU CAN USE
Prof. C.V. Chandrasekhar, senior Bharatanatyam exponent, guru, composer, to receive the Kalidas Samman for dance from the Madhya Pradesh State Government
A.K.C. Natarajan, clarinet maestro, to receive the title of Sangita Kalanidhi from the Music Academy, Madras
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