Toronto celebrated the 33rd annual Thyagaraja aradhanai with the usual fan fare. Pancharatnam keerthanai rendition by the localperformers commenced at 9 am on Saturday, April 9, with an invocation number by well known artiste N. Ramani on the flutefollowed by the ghana pancharathna krithis. Individual singing by the local talent followed with sumptuous breakfast and lunchprovided in between.
There were tables with CDs, tapes and books on music by well known artistes on sale. Colourful pattupodavais, pavadais and men
in kurtas were a pleasing sight.
This particular Thyagaraja event is the most popular one in Toronto. There were three Pancharatna krithi renditions held earlier inJanuary and February, by other local groups and one of them included the Panchartna krithis set to dance by Dr. Alakananda andparty, and one of the groups organised by S. Ganapathi had an interesting 'Unjavritti' feature included as well.
This particular series of events organized by Bharathi Kala Manram was a three-day affair starting with a concert by R.K. Srikantan and party on Friday evening, (April 8), a jugalbandi featuring AKC Natrajan on clarinet, N. Ramani on flute, Nagai Muralidharan on violin and Trichi Sankaran on mridangam on Saturday evening.
Individual singing continued on Sunday. In all, there were about 40 local participants rendering Thyagaraja kritis. The third day(Sunday April 10) culminated with a concert by Unni Krishnan (vocal), Akkarai Subbalakshmi on violin, and local percussion artistes Gowri Shankar on mridangam and Sriram Suryanarayanan on kanjira.
The main pieces in this concert included Mohanam, and Thodi with an impressive RTP in Bahudari. The thaniavartanam was enjoyable. Akkarai Subbalakshmi provided excellent accompanying violin support.
All the events were well attended with over 500 people on an average on each of the days.
The week prior to the Thyagaraja celebrations, Bharathi Kala Manram had a vocal concert by Gayathri Venkatraghavan and party.
On April 23, there will be a vocal concert by senior musician R. Vedavalli.
