Indian classical music concert review

The concert under analysis was conducted in Cupertino, California, and featured
Krishna Parthasarathy who sang Carnatic music and Shishir Rao, who primarily sang
Hindustani music. They were accompanied by (pakkavadhyam) Ameya Rao who
played the Harmonium, Akshay Naresh who played the flute, Vignesh Venkataraman,
who played the mridangam and vikas yendluri on the tabla.
Krishna Parthasarathy began his formal training in Carnatic music from Smt.
Shanthi Narayan and Sri. P.V. Natarajan at the age of 13. He has since had the good
fortune of learning from eminent artists such as Sri. Mullaivasal G. Chandramouli,
Sri. Neyveli R. Santhanagopalan, Smt. Padma Narayanaswami, and Sri Hemmige V.
Srivatsan.
Shishir has been learning Hindustani Music from Sri. Nachiketa Yakkundi
since 2002. He is also a student of Sri. Vivek Datar from whom he learns
Harmonium. He is for ever indebted to his gurus and to Sri. Nachiketa Yakkundi in
particular for motivating, and instilling the passion he has in music. He is currently a
freshman at NYU.
Akshay Naresh is a bansuri artist and a student of Prasad Bhandarkar
(Hindustani) and Shashank (Carnatic). Ameya Rao is a Hindustani Vocal student of
Shri Nachiketa Yakkundi, and a current freshman at UC Berkeley.
The concert begun with a piece in the rag bhupali
1
. The scale of Bhopali uses
only Shuddh swaras. Its Arohahanam (ascent) has just Sa Re Ga Pa Dha Sa and its
Avaroham (descent) is composed of Sa Dha Pa Ga Re Sa. The initial piece was fast
paced and energetic, used to set the tone and the energy for the rest of the concert.

1
As is known in Hindustani music. The same raga in Carnatic music is known as Mohanam.


The general tone of energy in the Raag is often attributed to the absence of nasals.
There was minimal improvisation in this piece.
The second piece sung was a piece in the Raga kumudakriya. This krithi had 3
stanzas, preceded by the introduction of the raga in which it is set ( by means of an
alampana). There was some improvisation during the krithi, which was held under the
constraints of the taalam and the raga.
In the third piece, there was an instance in the concert when there was a solo
by the percussion accompanists(thani avarathanam), where both of them seemed to
alternate and complement between one and the other and this seemed like a sort of a
competition. This increased the energy of the piece and supported the vocalists solos.
In the fourth piece,The raag sung in is called desh raga. Desh raga is of
Audav-sampurna nature, in its arohana only five notes are used, (Sa Re, Ma Pa Ni,
Sa) whereas the avarohana uses all the seven notes. (Sa ni Dha, Pa Dha Ma Ga Re, Pa
Ma Ga, Re Ga Ni Sa.)The energy of both the singers and the percussionists is a
synechdoche for the larger tone of the raga which is has been used in patriotic
compositions. Vande Mataram, the national song of India, is the most well-known of
these compositions.
This concert, as per the norm, finished with a Mangalam. The Mangalam is
the concluding piece of the concert. Most concerts finish with a Mangalam because
most Ragams had fixed time span in a day in which singing the ragam was considered
was most appropriate. e.g Bowli in the morning hours. In a 3 hour concert in which
many ragams are sung, we cannot follow the kala or time system owing to the time
constraint. As a remedy for this every concert ends with a mangalam
2
in which is
auspicious, and is conventionally believed to forgive the mistake done by the vocalist.

2
Usually sung in madhyamavathi, surutti or sree ragam
Overall there was a fairly even split between the set compositions and variable
improvisation (manodharmam)