After the Spring season, SIFA committee decided to do a special two day festival to give a platform for local talent. It was to have music, dance, instrumental music, a Hari katha and the first Carnatic music Quiz.
With a lot of hard work from a lot of folks, things came together for what can only be described as a successful inaugural event.
We did learn a lot with this two day event given the tight gaps between concerts. There were 4 events each day with a Quiz going in parallel. We will use those to do even better in coming years. Something tells me this was not a one off event.
There are a lot of pictures and kids deserve their solo photos just like experienced artists! Some of them were too shy to even pose, but their music was powerful for their age!
Also got to do a final vote of thanks and what I said there was from the heart!
Loved every concert in this two day line up!
Given the 600+ photos here are some of my favs.. in two galleries.
Wanted to remember this vote of thanks.. so sharing it here. If you are a bay area parent who has spent a lot of time driving your kids to music or dance class for years on end, waited outside while they finish, pick them back up in various moods, encourage them to practice, participate in annual days, etc. just to make sure music is a part of their life for whatever reason, you are not alone! All that effort and time pays off in the long run. You help carry forward an art through the next generation. The music will always stay with the kids!
Did go find the collection of song notes from Bharathi Kalalaya from 27-28 years ago! Vid. Anu Suresh was my first guru in the bay area and she was my first music guru as I started from Sa-Pa-Sa with her in the late nineties. Could not continue after Jr. was about to come into this world! Glad to have music back in my life.
If your kids do not continue their music or dance once they hit college or a job, it is still okay. Every now and then when they move to music or pick up an instrument or hum along, you will know it is there inside. Never know when they can start again. One thing you will notice. They can sit through a full concert and enjoy it! They will seek out music.. be it Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran or RaGa or Raja! I can be happy with that and pat myself on the back for a job well done.
That quiz reminded me of the “Tamil-Miruga-Ragam” quiz (that is what Jr. and the little one used to call it) that I would conduct as a bed time exercise. They would have to translate animal names, vegetable fruit names etc. from English to Tamil and guess the ragam as I hummed. Used to that when Jr. was 6 to 8 and the little one was 3-5 years old. It was interesting to see the kids in the team get buzzer duty and the adults do the guessing.
This festival brought out a lot of emotions in me over the two days. It definitely makes me more motivated to do better to further these art forms over the coming years!
The Cupertino Kuyils decided that one of us should volunteer to be more involved in SIFA. Given I was there two hours before concerts to help the guys move equipment, to after the end of the concert to help cleanup.. and also given that I am no longer part of the carpool to the concerts, they all looked at me…
Everyone in the group nominated me and after a few of the board and existing committee members talked to me, they said I should be the joint Secretary. Was happy to be part of this group of music afficianados. They always told interesting back stories and were willing to teach me the ropes. Two of them in particular, Shanthi Venkatesh and Vish Ganapathy literally have been coaching me for the last six months on “how to be a good volunteer”, not to mention the rest of the group who have all been amazing!
Before taking this on, I did tell them that because of the India trip and the Japan trip in the works, I would miss 3 of the 8 concerts in Spring but will do my best to support all till I was here. They were okay with it.
Volunteering has been a different experience. You don’t necessarily get to sit in one place and listen to the concert. You have to keep walking in and out. It is about supporting the event to make sure everything is going okay. Checking messages from other committee members during concert, taking audience reactions, preparing intro speeches, email marketing, event photography when our aasthana photographer is busy, etc. Compared to other folks I do a lot less, so one can only imaging the effort that goes into these events.
Dealing with artists expectations and sound checks.. the audio team is very very special for the way they have to try and make every artist happy with the sound balance in record time.
All that said, I have thoroughly enjoyed this role over the last 6 months!
We started with the Tyagaraja Aaradhana at the local Cupertino Quinlan community center. Our group was there to support me!
Then there was the annual Shivrathri dance festival organized by Anuradha Prabhashakar. This year was special. It was a two day event with a lot of dance groups with different dance styles. Enjoyed it thoroughly!
In the middle of the spring series, we were fortunate to host San’s music teacher at our place for a Hindustani Bitek (home concert). Jr. became an event planner during this and contributed immensely to this, including the decor. We wanted to have a “forest theme” and she made the wall look foresty enough. We were able to host 60 people with floor seating and the couches rearranged. Given more than 50 percent of the audience cannot sit cross legged on the floor, next time we host an event like this, will need more chairs! That was another lesson learned.
Here is the spring concert series in review and we also had a special event between the Spring and Fall series. That needs a post in itself.
The Aaradhana which was really well attended by all the local music teachers, their students and rasikas!
The morning was singing the Pancharathnam. The afternoon was a chance to folks to register and sing to the audience. A lot of kids and adults signed up. Was thinking we should publish who is singing what song and have a first come first served list so that we avoid repeats from the kids. Kind of like what we do in our smule singing meets. There were a lot of “theliyaledu rama’s”. All interesting and from kids of different age groups.
The Shivrathri two day dance event! Hats off to Anu for doing this every year for 25 years now! It has been an honor to be the photographer for this event for sometime now. A heartfelt thanks to Anu for inviting me every year to take photos! It is one thing to know when a kid is going to jump or hold a pose in an Arangetram as we would have familiarity. It is another thing to try and capture an event which was choreographed last minute and no one has seen it before. Literally get to see the dance through the viewfinder!
The home Bitek concert!! Jaya as usual was outstanding in her singing and audience engagement. I would have loved to invite more of my SIFA friends to this but by the time her students and close friends showed up we were already worried about capacity! This was also my compering attempt.. which came in handy while introducing artists at SIFA concerts!
After this was the start to the regular SIFA spring series. The first was a truly grand production with over a 100 students of Vid. Latha Sriram called “Shanmukha- The lord of Victory” based on the Aarupadai veedu theme. It was fantastic! Not often do you get to see a Kanjira and Morsing played at a concert! Also the logistics of having 100 kids on stage was organized really well with the parent support group for this music school.
The next event was a double header. The first concert was by Vid. Asha Ramesh immediately followed by Vid. Gayathri Venkataraghavan. Vid. Asha is my local favorite along with my friend and her collaborator Vid. Nachiketha Sharma and Vid. Gayathri is someone I never miss as my guru Vid. Koushik Ramchander is a big fan of her. Over the years I have used her youtube videos as references on many songs!
It was an exhausting day running around. Registered 5 miles of walking all day within the auditorium over the two back to back concerts! Was happy doing it though!
The thaniaavarthanams from both Vid. Ravindrabharathy and Vid. Bharadhwaj will stay in my mind for a long time. Very different styles, very different sounds from their instruments and it was a lesson to watch how different artists bring out the flavor of their instruments in creative ways.
The next event was by Vid. Ramakrishnan Murthy. This is our second time seeing him at SIFA. I would not be surprised if he is giving a Sangeetha Kalaanidhi recognition soon. His craft is improving exponentially! It was a new venue for us which had its challenges for the crowd that showed up. Need larger venues for him going forward! 500 seats are not enough!
This was followed by Anubhav, a Vocal and Flute experience, put together by Vid. Shashank, Vid. Abhishek Raghuram, Vid. Parupalli Phalgun and Vid. Krishna. Had a great experience post concert where the two percussionists were discussing what happened in the concert and started singing Jathi together to clarify something! Both the flute and vocal were by artists who are geniuses in their own right. Another concert to remember!
I did miss three amazing concerts by Vid. Sunil Gargyan, The Vid. Ganesh-Kumaresh Violin and my favorite RaGa. Was sitting down doing Varushabdheegam in India and thinking of my friends here attending the RaGa concert. The aasthana photographer covered those events!
It was a an amazing season. The bay area has enough teachers and students and rasikas to keep us going!
Given I have been singing a lot recently, thought of sharing my contact points with music in the blog. Things got to a point where this needed its own section in the blog. So after many years, opening a new tab, just for music!
To understand why I am where I am, it might not be a bad idea to explain things from the past.
My grandmother, who is in her nineties, is a great Carnatic music singer. She had a lot of promise as a youngster and was noticed by many talent scouts (or whatever they were called in those days in Chennai). She got married young, had my mom at 15 and then her kids kept her busy. She still tried to sing after her kids grew up. Then I was born! At some point she became grandma daycare center and singing took a hit. There would always be whispers about how somehow my arrival had something to do with her singing expectations ending.
My grandmother never mentioned anything to me ever. She always sang to me and would say "edhavadhu vadhyam vaasikka kaththuko.. ungamma appavala moonu kuzhandhaiya Engligh medium schoolukku anupparadhe periya vishayam. Ippo illattiyum ennikkaavadhu sandharpam kidaichcha, kaththuko!"
(learn to play some instrument.. it is a big deal for your mom and dad to send three kids to English medium schools. Even if not now, someday when you get the opportunity, learn an instrument!"). I remember it like yesterday.
Given my impatience, I rolled on the floor, cried, threw a trantrum and got enrolled in a Violin class at Shringeri mutt. It was a 1 hour group class in a small room in the office building attached to the Saradhambaal temple, near what is now Mandaiveli Rail station, and the monthly fees was 5 Rupees! However, there was no violin at home! I got to learn there and the teacher, a very old Iyengar thatha would let me stay back and practice for 30 minutes. Managed to learn the very basics, and did Sarali and Jantai Varisai there over a few months. Then things changed, school got busy and that was that!
Then I ended up in Varanasi. My classmate found out that the music department under Dr. N. Rajam had a beginners one hour violin class every Saturday. The teacher, yet another old Iyengar thatha, would teach four of us students and none of us had a violin! All three of us would practice the finger positions without a violin and play there on Saturday. It was also hard given Saturday noon was feast in the mess halls and this class would be at 2PM. We would fight the "undamyakkam" and try to concentrate in class.
On top of that, it went swimmingly well as this thatha told me "You have to undo everything from the past and re-learn the right way". So over 5 months, I went from scratch (Sa-Pa-Sa) to Alankarams. Then the teacher got sick and the classes stopped. We became third year students and memorizing new English words on the Baron's GRE guide took priority over any other attempt to pursue learning Violin in Banaras!
In the last two months before leaving for the US, my moms school violin teacher taught me two geethams. Still no violin, but I did practice with her violin for a few days. She was a really great teacher. None of the "Undo this and redo that.." business. She smiled and encouraged me to adapt as she was teaching me. Then I came to the US and given the two suitcases where my packing would have rivaled that of astronauts, it was amazing that the music book made it! Later I learned that my own sister was a student of the school from the very man who wrote that book! She sings well, but sticks to Carnatic music in select functions. Have not heard her sing otherwise or share recordings.
A few months into grad school, our senior and guide Vish Vadari organized a music class for a bunch of interested grad students and post docs. This was also a once a week, evening class on campus, where we would block a room and learn from a local teacher. She did something interesting. She taught us the basics (from Sa-Pa-Sa to Alankarams again) but also taught us music appreciation (as we were all adults) by teaching us Rama Nama Sankeerthanams by Thyagaraja. These are songs we have all heard in social functions like weddings etc. We even went as a group and sang at a local Thyagaraja aaradhana in New Jersey in a Church converted to a temple. This was my first attempt at singing carnatic music!
Two years in, I moved schools and as a farewell gift, my grad school buddies all pooled in and bought me an antique violin! It was beautiful. They had it refurbed, new strings and all. Started practicing on my own whenever the mood hit me. It was always the sarali varisai to Alankarams. The one finger stuff Kalyani teacher had taught me before coming to US, was sadly forgotten.
It is around the same time that I started dancing and the music I played was almost always dance music. A heavy Latin influence to the point that my PhD thesis was dedicated to Julio Iglesias and Carlos Gardel. The only songs that came out of my mouth were in Spanish.
Eventually ended up in the bay area. Got married, stopped dancing and tried to sing again after my wife encouraged me to go find a teacher and learn. The one place which was the go to music school in those times was in Fremont, a good 45 minute drive. Used to drive 45 minutes one way for a 45 minute music class.. Again from Sa-Pa-Sa.. unlearn.. relearn.. this time again, there were some small songs, taught occasionally.
Then jr. was almost on her way into this world and she became my music.
When Jr. was in elementary school, I started to learn the guitar. That went great for a year, till my accident where my right arm was pretty much out of commission. It almost felt like there was some divine intervention that stopped me from learning music every time I crossed a six month period! If it happened once, it is a fluke, but this happened over and over again.
This time wanted to keep at it. Once my hand healed, thanks to yoga and another surgery, continued with the guitar. Learned for almost four years till my teacher said "You have graduated and I have taught you everything I could. The rest is up to you to practice and perfect!" . Then my job changed and ended going to Austin every alternate week and eventually to China and Taiwan every third week.
The guitar gently weeps.. still.. (here are some old videos from the blog!)
this video pretty much sums up my attempts at playing anything at home.. "Appppaaaa" would come the scream!
While I paint this as a bleak picture of me never getting to stick to music and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, truth is I was always close to music.
Here is the upside..
As a kid, I was always listening to my grandmother sing to me. My fathers elder sister was also an amazing singer and she used to sing whenever we used to meet or spend time together. She would tell me "Murali, unakku kural nalla irukku! Nee paatu kaththuko!" (Murali, you have a nice voice. You should learn to sing!) . Have never heard my mom or her siblings sing though, during my childhood.
Here are my dads older sister and my maternal grandma doing the aarati and singing. They would always be the ones to sing in any family function! (that grainy photo is from my Poonal)
My dad decided to splurge and get a Phillips gramaphone record player when I was around 4. We had only 5 records early on and we used to play it at bedtime almost every day in rotation. They were and I kid you not..
- Soundtrack of Ayappan movie
- Soundtrack of Adi Sankara movie
- MS Balaji Pancharatnamala
- Ayigiri Nandini by Anantharama deekshadhar
- MLV hits
Then my dad got a three disk MS set which had a black ODEON sticker in the middle. There were like 30 songs in those. A year later my uncle got a tape recorder after he came back from his first trip as a new employee. The whole family would be around this tape recorder. Tapes were becoming cheaper and more tapes were available. We could also "record" what we heard on All India Radio and our own voices. My grandmas voice was on a tape! My voice was on a tape somewhere!
We used to listen to music on a Phillips Transistor radio that had an antenna that went across the entire room. It was a copper coated mesh, that much I remember. We had it always set to AIR and listened to concerts and some film music. That was largely thanks to my last three aunts who were the younger generation and were fans of the movies that were emerging. This was the time where Rajni and Kamal were replacing Sivaji and MGR at the box office. Ilayaraja took over the airwaves. ( you can see that radio in the top shelf.. the TV was the first TV that we got. Doordarshan was our only channel and we would mostly listen to Carnatic concerts and the odd Hindi and Tamil movie they would play on Saturday and Sunday nights).
When I was in 5th grade and suffered from severe Jaundice or when I had a skin infection and missed out on school for three months, would listen to whatever was playing on a small pocket transistor radio all afternoon with my eyes closed. That was my only solace during a miserable period.
When I was going to college, my dad got me a Sony walkman from Burma Bazaar. I would spend most of my college days listening to all kinds of music on it. My collegemates, gave me a window to pop music which was also interesting!
The first thing I got after coming to the US was an RCA tape player and radio. Music was there in the lab all the time. On the plus side, I never had stage fright. Somewhere, there is a photo of me holding a mic on stage and singing at a TAGDV (Tamil Association of Greater Delaware Valley) Tamil New Year funtion. There was also another picture of me singing on stage at the Thiagaraja aradhana in NJ with hippie hairdo and all. Sadly, I cannot find those photos. Spent a day searching!! This is a photo of the Carnatic music group! Still in touch with Vish and Vatsan. The rest, I have no clue.. Hope they are all still singing!
Then the RCA player just started playing a different language. The feet were always moving, the heart was just beating to a new rythm!
As a dad, would sing to both kids at bedtime. There was a nightly quiz for them called the "Tamil Mirugam Raagam", which was questions about Tamil translations, a quiz about animals and identifying Carnatic music Ragas. Had to practice a little bit, just to make sure they did a good job of identifying.
Jr. would guess about 20 ragas and the little one about four or five. This was when Jr. was ~5 and the little one was ~2. Still remember how the little ones answer to all clues were always "Is it Shanmukhapriya?" and when I would actually hum that, she will say something else!
We would play music on the radio or CD's all the time with the kids.. Learned to sing the entire collection of Rafi songs thanks to Jr. and the little one. The Boowah and Koala collection, Barney and Friends, Elmo hits. The musical taste just changed a lot. Wish there was a recording of my rendition of "down by the bay" or "baby beluga"! You would be proud of my effort!
Music was always there, in the periphery, just not in a way I could sing and get better.
As the kids grew older, everytime I would start singing in the car, or sing along to something on the radio, the instant response would be "Appa, can you please shut up?!" . They would say "Please" before the shut up.
Jr. learned to become a really good Saxophone player and the little one learned to play Western classical Violin. We wanted the kids to have music in their life. The amount of time I spent driving them to their class, sitting outside their class, hearing them learn and play, went by fast. Watched Jr. learn music for a few years, then decide to dance instead and do her Arangetram. There was a lot of music. The blog has videos of their journey with music and dance over the years! So we were surrounded by music and again it was just a different type of music.
The antique violin still is in good shape. I just haven't gone to it regularly!
In the last 10 years or so, I had not opened my mouth to sing anything for fear of the "please shut up!" shout from the wife and kids. So shut up it was!
