By Sunitha
Some of us attended the flute concert by Shantala Subrahmanyam in Durham yesterday, organized by ICMDS. I didn’t have much expectations when I went there, even though her resume had looked quite interesting – Flute Shahank’s little sister, tutored in vocal music by O.S. Tyagarajan, and also taken extensive training by percussion maestros. I have to say that she didn’t let me down!
She was quite vocal and adamant with her specific requirements for the sound system and her surroundings while preforming, unlike most female Indian musicians I have encountered! I have to admit that I admired her for that!
She started with a varna in the raaga Natikkuranji. (It is the second raga in Bhavayami – Dinakaraanvaya Tilakam). Varnas are mostly sung/played as an exercise to get their minds into the performing mode. Usually most musicians do the Pallavi, Anupallavi in 2 or 3 speeds (kaalas) and then do the Charana and "Ettugade swaras" in madhyama kaala. But she chose to do even those swaras in two kaalas, which I thought sounded good on the flute.
The second piece was Gopalakrishna Bhaaratiyar’s composition: Sabhapati in the raaga Abhogi. A nice one. Abhogi is a pleasant raaga, and is popular in both Karnatic and Hindustani schools of music with the same scale. It is a descendant of Kharaharapriya (22nd mela).
The next one was Tyagaraja’s kriti "Manavyaalakinchara" in Nalina Kanti raaga. This and the next one (Ninnuvina in raaga Navarasakannada) are very popular among instrumental musicians, due to their popular rhythmic phrases in Anupallavi and Charana. They tend to improvise the sangaties. This is one of the relaxed improvising phases of instrumental performances where the main performer (flutist here), violinist and the percussionist entertain the crowd responding to each other in their own improvs line by line. This part doesn’t need very informed audience. Even those who have no clue about classical music get entertained thoroughly just with the energy the three of them bring in. This concert wasn’t an exception, even though they didn’t spend as much time as Kadri Gopalanathan had, on Saxophone, when he played the same piece last year.
After the composition in the raaga Navarasa Kannada, the main raaga of the concert began. She chose our ever popular Kalyani raaga. I am sure Mukund enjoyed it thoroughly as he picks Yaman (Hindustani version of Kalyani) for most of his solos! This was when she started complaining that the stage was very cold. I was under the impression that she was a bit too picky, but only when Prasad introduced us during the interval, she told me that she was worried about the bamboo flute which would start going out of tune if it got cold, I felt quite sympathetic. She had a valid reason, but the tech guy said he couldn’t do much about it. (even though closing the vent seemed to fix the problem later). While playing the raga Kalyani, she was totally distracted due to the blower bothering her and one could see she wasn’t able to concentrate on her raga rendition. She spent way too much time in the lower notes, which was not very appealing to the crowd, even though I thought her raaga phrases were quite creative. Even the ending of the aalaap wasn’t obvious to the audience and there was no applause! She was also bugged with the violin guy (Vinu) trying to do a bit more than supporting her during the aalaap and she silently communicated to him to do not more than what was expected of him during her turn! As a result he seemed to get a bit conscious and the overall ragaalaapana wasn’t impressive at all. She played the Tyagaraja composition "Amma raavamma" in Kalyani after the aalaap. She vocally sang the pallavi so the audience could understand the lyrics better. I know she is learning vocal music as well, but I hope she will stay with flute which seems to be her strength.
She gave a 15 minutes break after this and started the popular song "Nagumomu" in the raaga Abheri (Bhimpalasi in Hindustani). The aalaap was very short, but she did a very nice swara prasthara (swara imporv), which was followed by the percussion solo by Balaji (Balaji-sir, as she called him). Both Shantala and the violinist (Vinu) did an outstanding job with the swara improv. During the percussion solo, the mridangist did the vocal percussion as well (it is called Kunnakkuzal on Tamil). It was breathtaking to see how he could twist his tongue (believe me, it is beyond what you can imagine), do the on-the-spot improv of the taala phrases and maintain the tempo, all at the same time. It was outstanding. I was surprised when Shantala took the microphone and did the Kunnakuzal herself, for a short period. I could see the amount of training she has had in percussion theory when she did the swara improv for the Abheri composition. Those were very tricky and well above the usual standard we see in most concerts.
By the time she finished the Abheri piece, the blowers had started their jobs again, to irritate her enough! She quickly concluded with the Purandaradasa kriti "Jagadoddharana" in Kapi and a very soothing Jaavali in Behag. Jaavalies are songs about Krishna, sung by the gopika women. It is a trend to sing one of those at the end of a Karnatic concert, just like a Tillana. She was in such a hurry to conclude that she didn’t even play the mangalam! It definitely put off my good friend Kailasam, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy every part of the concert, and was waiting to hear the Mangalam!
Thanks to ICMDS (specially our Prasad) for working tirelessly to bring in such unique opportunities for us to forget all our daily issues and spend a few hours in a world so soothing and rewarding!
There is another good concert coming in two weeks, organized by SIFAA, by Madhurai Seshagopalan on 15th April. I believe we have to move our class once again to an earlier time, to accommodate that. (It is in West Cary Middle school at 2:30 PM). I have attended his live concert before and highly recommend it. He is a legend in Karnatic music who raised the level of performance to a new level during his days.
Thanks for reading! I feel part of my lunch break today is well spent recreating those nice moments from yesterday’s concert!
Sunitha
