Music Concert

Last week I had guests from India. It was Ms. Vasudha who is Bamini manni's niece. She is a Carnatic Music Vocalist and she had been invited to Singapore to perform in Shree Sivan temple. We wanted her to sing here in KL too and invited her over. She came with her dad.
I have heard her sing before in Chennai in Sabhas as well as at home when ever I happen to be in my brother's place and she visited.
I knew she could sing well, but I never knew she could sing this well. It was an experience to hear her sing. She is a young woman in her early twenties and is doing her MBA in human resources in Loyala college Chennai and she is like any other youngster, enthusiastic and cheerful and excited about her first visit to a foreign country. But once she is on stage she is completely transformed.
I never saw her practice or doing her sadhana early in the morning. She was just quite casual about singing. One local artist was to perform with her as the violinst as the pakka vadhayam. Since the violinist was not very experienced we were asked to meet up with her in the organizer's house. I was just watching their interlude and how Vasudha was asking what Ragas that girl will be comfortable with, so that she will do her alapanas in those ragas. Since my mother had also done the duty of a tamilian mom of putting me in music classes when I was young and the concerts I have heard though not many, I am quite aware of the kutchery format of Raga alapana, swaras and neravals and thukkada and all that even though I can not recognise any ragas. Vasudha told us later that she will decide the songs she is going to sing depending on the audience and she will roughly have a list in her mind.
Here I have to mention that my hubby dear loves carnatic music and I am no music buff.
On the kutchery day she started in a slow tempo and slowly the tempo increased. I could see that she was singing a lengthy song and then a smaller faster song followed. I could see that she was by far better than the accompaniments of mridangam and also gangira who just managed to follow her. She was all the time encouraging the Violinist and was smiling at her all the time. After the kutchery every body was praising her choice of songs she sang.
In the next place she chose songs which were completely different and the theme was 'muruga' songs even though it was a Devi temple. Here a srilankan tamil (of course malaysian) music teacher attended the concert. She teaches some of my friends devotional songs and they sing in murugan temple every sashti day. That teacher is not keeping very good health but she sat through the 2 hours and I could see she was moved almost to tears. The songs really moved the audience. One of the songs was my husband's favourite 'kanda va va'
I had arranged only these two kutcheries and after hearing her, she was invited to sing in another temple. Here she simply excelled herself and we could see that she was doing complicated thalas and while doing swaras she was excelling in her thala control. This I could understand as she did it on purpose and told us before how it is all mathematical calculations and how she is going to go about them. Anand had also once told me that the percussion instrument is just mathematical abilities when he learned tabla for 2 months in India and still he is at it when ever it pleases him.
She is good at purandara dasa kruthis and all these three concerts she could not sing that, she wanted to sing them for me alone. I wanted her to sing for my friends too and so off we went to my friends place where few music lovers had come and it became a chamber concert. (This word I am hearing for first time. may be that is what they do in America where lots of artists from India go, Invite all your friends for grub and then have the kutchery at home) . Here she sang purandara dasa and also kanaka dasa and also basaveswara vachana all in kannada. Her diction was so perfect. It is no wonder as her teacher is Dr. Manjula who is a kannadiga. There were lot of 'neyar viruppam' (audience request) she sang them too. Of course there was no pakkavadyam for her here. She ended her kutchery with a tillana every time. Every time I hear the tillana I can visualize some body dancing nicely to the tillana. Every where she sang she did not have any note or book and just sang from her memory and each time she did not repeat a song sang earlier.
I really wonder why she has not become quite famous as yet in Chennai. Is it that she has no God Father or Mother to support her. Is it that she is not a child of a famous artist or a 'sisya of a famous artist.
She does sing in the music season but not at the prime time of 6.p.m or 7p.m. slot.
I am convinced that with her caliber of music she will be one of the great singers in Chennai if not in India.
She wants to take up a job with her MBA and does not want to depend on music as her profession as she feels she does not want to get desperate and it will affect the way in which she sings. She loves to sing rare thyagaraja kruthis which are not that famous but which are very good.
We want to organize a real big concert for her here and may be we will be able to do it some time.