Some music is better than no music

This fall season was a muted affair when it came to attending music concerts. Had to make an emergency unplanned trip to India and a bunch of other obligations made it difficult to attend concerts.

Did manage to attend 5 concerts , some of them partially.. had to leave a Thissur brothers concert early because wife double booked me for a dinner at friends. Ended up attending last half of Asha Ramesh concert.

Managed to attend Amritha Murali concert from beginning to end. The Mandolin Rajesh concert was fantastic, but started 90 minutes late, had a bunch of folks talking to make it late by another 15 minutes and that pissed me off so much. Good thing he played amazingly well to calm me down. Had to leave after an hour though as we had to get back to the routine. 

It has been that kind of a year. They say you have to have a "kuduppanai" for everything. This years kuduppanai seems to be limited. 

Thissur brothers were just outstanding.. this is my third time attending their concert in as many years. Every concert has been better than the previous one!

Amritha Murli was great. No gimmicks. Clean singing. It was a demo in how to keep things simple and yet bring out so much!

Asha was so energetic. She is one of the most popular bay area artists and it is always a treat to listen to her. She is the Usha Udhup of carnatic music. Her singing makes me want to get up and dance ! The wide range of accompaniments in this concert including a veena was excellent. 

Mandolin Rajesh wrapped up the season finale at SIFA. was glad to catch at least a little over an hour of his concert. The tabla and kanjeera combo was scintillating. They even said the Jathi before playing their respective openings for the thaniaavarthanam. 

Just when we thought the season came to an end too soon, got invited to attend a fund raiser concert by my wife's Hindustani music guru Jaya Vidhayasagar at the MA center. Loved this concert. We all got to sing along with her for some of the bhajans. Enjoyed the music. 

That pretty much wraps up this Falls music season. Hopefully will get to attend more next spring!

An amazing music season

The spring of 2024 had an amazing line of up music concerts across the bay area. There are only so many weekends availble to attend 3 to 3 1/2 hour concerts. Made the most of the chances presented.

There is still one concert over the long weekend from Bharat Sundar which will be missed. So posting this as my spring attendance has already come to a close.

There was an amazing start from Ramakrishnan Murthy. He did a one hour piece on one of my favorite ragas, Kharaharapriya with Pakkala Nilabadi which we all loved. We also got to meet and talk to him for a few minutes after the concert, thanks to our friend who is related to him. Ram is going to be the Sanjay for the coming generation. His music is moving!

The next concert we attended (we go as a group from Cupertino) was a "curated" concert titled Krishnam Vande Jagatgurum by Gayathri Girish. She is a great singer and is a very traditional singer with no gimmiks but the beauty was in the way she tied every song to the theme, irrespective of the diverse composers and languages she chose the compositions from. Krishna is a pan-Indian god, guess he has a fan following across the globe. Short of singing a Krishna Bhajan in English, she covered the spectrum!

The week after, we were going to be dropping our daughter in Santa Barbara. Kid had come for the weekend and had to be in college a day early, so I was originally going to miss the concert to do the one day road trip. Was literally driving back non stop from UCSB when my friends were audio calling me from the concert hall to show how good the artist was. My music teacher had also told me not to miss NJ Nandini. So raced to the concert hall and could barely walk from the parking lot to the seat. Enjoyed the last hour of Nandini's concert. Have become a fan now. She is one amazing talent. The gambeeravani she sang with so much energy stayed in my head for a good week to the point that I tried learning it. There are no renditions out there with that energy level. Every piece she sang was brilliant! Will try not to miss her concert next time she comes!

This was followed by a Jugalbandhi Flute concert by Sashank and Ronu Majumdar (Ronu-da) that was just out of the world. The boy wonder and the bansuriwala were just teeing off of each other and we walked out feeling that this could have been a longer concert. 3 hours went by too fast. Just amazing. They picked pieces in Aboghi, Kalyani- Yaman, Megh-Madhyamavathi, Maand- Misra Maand, and that just went on to other things to conclude. We got a flavor for pitch shifting with both of them playing flutes in different pitches which were harmonic. The mridhangam and tabla were supposed to go with the Carnatic and Hindustani sections, but they switched seamlessly to support the other style in two of the pieces in the most brilliant way. 

Then I went by myself to see Vijay Siva in concert. Still remember going to a private concert in someones basement in Philadelphia suburbs as a grad student on his first tour to US (if I remember right) in 1993. Some kind lady had offered to pick up me and my housemate from college campus and give us a ride oneway. We were to take the train back. It was 50 or so people listening to him in a basement turned stage! Vijay Siva stuck to basics and showed how purity in music and simplicity can still work in a concert. The music was pristine for lack of a better word! An added bonus, yet along hour long piece on Kharaharapriya, this time it was Chakkaniraja. He also sang the thiruppugazh Nada vindu kaladi, which I love. 

The other interesting thing in this concert was the teacher allowing two of his students stage time and showing them how to take over and sing with him.. this was tradition in the old days when the star musicians would introduce their students to the audience.. he was the only one in recent time who has followed this tradition. It is good to see this guru parampara also being alive and well in this day and age!

Then there was a week of music that had three concerts. On a Saturday we went to see Sikkil Gurucharan perform for a fund raising event for MA foundation. This was not exactly a Carnatic music concert. It was more of a "musical evening" where he sang everything with a motherhood theme in many different styles. There was cine music mixed into Carnatic and Hindustani music, with a violin duo and a keyboard accompanying the second half the concert. The music was enjoyable and there was a lot of time spent on introducing the pieces because the large crowd was very diverse. 

The very next day we got treated to what was undeniably the best concert we attended this season. Sanjay Subrahmanyan was in town for his "Tamizhum Naanum" concert where he did the entire concert with songs in Tamil. Last year I missed his concert inspite of having tickets because we had to drop the kids off in college that very weekend. This year thankfully, got to attend what was an amazing concert.

Every song he sang was spell binding. At one point when he was singing Keeravani, I started crying uncontrollably. Was suddenly reminded of my grandmother who passed recently. Never got to grieve her the way the rest of the family did. Sanjay broke some emotional dam and all that pent up grief just came pouring out. Took me a good five minutes to compose myself again and get back to focusing on the music and just then he was playing with the notes and ending every line in his aalapanai with a smile on his face... knew there was some familiarity there and sure enough when the violinst played the whole thing at a stretch, it was S. Janaki's aalap from Kaatre endhan geetham from Johnny! Ilayaraja magic showed up!

As usual, he picked some rare pieces. His RTP in Brindavana Saranga was mesmerizing. Came out wiping my eyes after that concert. The purpose of music is to move. Hope he shows up again next year and I get to attend his concert. 

The week of music was not over as on Friday, got to attend an amazing Hindustani- Carnatic jugalbandhi vocal concert by Nachiketa Yakkundi and Asha Ramesh in Cupertino for a Ram Navami house concert that had been delayed from the original date. That delay was my fortune. Two local artists who are amazing musicians who do sold out concerts, performing in a house for family and friends. It was an amazing experience just sitting 5 feet away and listening to these two show their mastery over their art forms. Got to learn about Behag vs. Bihag among other things. Ther was an amazing piece in Pantuvarali and Poorya Dhanashree (they are close but not the same) and the artist showed us what was close and what was not for an hour long piece that was brilliant. Just came out thinking "must have done some good in the previous birth" to get this kind of music experience over a 7 day period! 

The regular sponsored community concerts will be done by next weeked and things will resume in Fall. Maybe will get to attend some one off events over summer.

This time San came with me to a lot more concerts than she usually does. Made me very happy!

Fortunate to have a bunch of friends who are like minded with whom I can go and enjoy music this way!d