TNS

saw TN Seshagopalan (with mullaivasal chandramouli) in concert at the pittsburgh temple. before that there were fireworks for deepavali and a styrofoam dinner (desi fare for oldies, pizza and brownies for the ABCDs who had obviously been forced by their parents to don their indian clothes and attend diwAAAlee.

TNS started off with an aTa tALa mOhana varnam (mana mOhana). his voice sounded a tad raspy and with a tinge of coryza. he followed it with the majestic shankha chakra in pUrNa chandrikA. his voice was terrible and the beautiful lilty swaras were a bit offkey and strained esp. at the high octaves. somehow his singing reminded me of someone with ALS. mind is active but muscles do not obey, in his case vocal cords. he then launched into a passionate pUrvI kaLyANI AlApana and maybe it was due to the tumblers of coffee he was swigging in the chaste no_lips_to_the_glass iyengar way, his voice improved greatly by the time he was finished with the a and he followed it with the sedate parama pAvana rAmA (by pUchI?) complete with neraval and kalpanaswarams. i had already made up my mind to stay after the AlApana instead of going to watch persepolis as was planned earlier. the next piece was a pleasant surprise- he did an exquisite rendering of sAmA (the violonist had a hard time matching this) followed by a lovely composition, i think of his own, called thAyE thanaIyan sEyE with the wonderful rhyming on the second syllable. i don't think any other poetry save tamizh has this rather idiosyncratic rhyming scheme. the composition itself was beautiful and had a lilting gait with a sesha mudra. he mercifully spared us of KS or neravals which would have been like adding feet to a serpent. this was quickly followed by a reasonably elaborate rendering of gANgEya bhushanI (sari evvare ramiah) of thiagaraja which i actually figured out ab initio :) head of nATa (unmistakeable R3 G3, tail of kIravANI. the only other thing would have been sarasangi but the R3 G3 was so obvious. by this time, the man was in his usual form with the occasional apaswaram. by the time he was deep into kharaharapriya, he was the TNS of the passionate high octaves and elaborate kanakku fame. he sang the gem of a thiagaraja composition (well they are all gems aren't they) soumitri bhAgyamE again replete with detailed neraval and KS. felt bad leaving during the thani that followed but had no choice.

overall it was an enjoyable concert despite the raspy start. it was probably the only detailed sAmA rendition i have heard and of course my ego was thrilled at detecting gANgEyabHushanI. i actually didn't miss an RTP although it would have been good to listen to a rAgamAlikA with his wonderful ability to switch between rAgAs.