Vintage Clarinet concert

The season offers different flavours to the rasikas.

If you were one at the clarinet concert recently held at Narada Gana Sabha mini hall hosted by Dr. Thiruvengadu Subramania Pillai Trust, you would have been taken to the olden days when the nadaswaram reigned and how!

Senior vidwan A. K. C. Natarajan's (seen on the extreme left in the picture on the left) name is synonymous with the clarinet.

With an initial training in vocal music from the Alathur brothers, Natarajan took a lot of pains to adapt the instrument to suit the needs of Carnatic music. Perhaps he is the only artiste who plays the instrument in the Carnatic style these days.

Noted for his raga alapanas, Natarajan drew a decent number of audience on that day. The day devoted to the pipe instruments had a nadaswarm concert by Injikudi E. M. Subramaniam, who is known for the traditional mallari in nadaswaram.

Perhaps, the sabhas should have more nadaswaram concerts apart from the ceremonious opening day concerts.

Dancers from Kenya soak in!

For Shalini and Shruthi Srivatsan, performing at the city during the December 'season' was a thrilling experience.

The sisters are based in Nairobi in Kenya and are keen classical dance students.

They have been in the city for over a fortnight and performed at the NRI festival of 'Hamsadhwani' sabha in Adyar.

Though they had performed at only one place, the duo say they had the opportunity to witness many other performances by senior artistes.

'This made our trip special,' say the sisters.

'We also had an experience of arts education in India at the Natya Kala Conference held at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha. We attended the conference on all the days.'

The families settled at Nairobi about 35 years ago and Indian arts is the only channel through which they keep the ties with their roots.

Shalini and Shruthi learnt under guru Geetha Umesh in Nairobi who learnt dance from Sri Rajarajeswari Kala Mandalam in Mumbai and later from Delhi.

'She runs a dance school - Nrithyalaya - in Nairobi and about hundred students learn from her. Though, initially we were introduced to dance by our mother, just like any other parent in a foreign country would do, we love Bharatanatyam now and like to take it up as a career,' say the sisters, who are engineers in different streams.

'Our teacher had briefed us on the 'season' and that helped us to plan each day,' said Shruthi. They resisted the temptation to explore the city.

'We can always come to the city later as tourists. December is special here. We hope to come back next year too.'

Honours for Nithyasree

Naadhabrahmam music journal is conducting its annual music festival from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Hall, Mylapore.

Vocalist Nithyasree Mahadevan received the title 'Naada Kovida' at its inaugural function. The function was followed by a concert of Nithyasree.

The festival features R. Prasanna on guitar, Vishaka Hari's vocal concert, Malladi brothers and Geetha Krishnamurthy on the veena among others.

Dance programmes of Shweta Suryakant Prapanche (dis. of Priyadarshini Govind), Vaishnavi Sainath (Daughter and disciple of Rajeswari Sainath) and Purnima Balasubramanian (Dis. of Lakshmi Ramaswamy) will also be held.

50 young dance students star in ballet

The 'season' is also a time for not-so-well known Chennai-based academies to showcase the talent of their work and their sishyas.And they work hard at it. Recently, fifty-two dance students, aged 7 to 30, of the Sri Devi Nrithyalaya based in Vadapalani, presented a captivating one-hour dance ballet performance at the Sri Thyaga Brahma Gana Sabha. It impressed a few overseas visitors and brought tears to the eyes of a few.

Sheela Unnikrishnan who runs Sri Devi Nrithalaya choreographed the ballet titled 'Parvathy Parinayam'.

Scenes relating to the birth of Parvathy and her celestial marriage with Lord Siva were well choreographed.

It was a remarkable performance by the students considering that about 15 of them had fallen ill by turn and could not turn up for practice sessions.

For example, the student who was supposed to have played Lord Muruga did not turn up at the last minute because of illness.

'I had thought about the theme for over three months. There were several tense moments during rehearsals and it was a challenge working with such a big group. The success of the show was due to the commitment shown by each participant,' says Sheela, adding, 'We had fun during the recording sessions though.'

'Parvathy Parinayam' will be staged at Mylapore Fine Arts, on January 7, at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha on January 9, and at Nungambakkam Cultural Academy on January 13.

Sri Devi Nrithyalaya is at The Majestic City, D-2, 21, L. V. Prasad Road, Vadapalani. (Ph: 2362 1126).

Reported by V. Soundara Rani