Concert of Shri Abishek Raghuram at BARC on 3rd April 2011

Shri Abishek Raghuram performed a vocal concert at BARC, Anushakti Nagar organised by Bhakta Rasika Ranjani Sabha on 3rd April 2011. Here is a review from Shri Gokul Chandramouli in Rasikas.org

http://www.rasikas.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=16108

Abhishek Raghuram's imagination and creativity brings to mind the genius of three people: TNS, BMK and Kalyanaraman. Yesterday's concert was an excellent display of gimmicks-based carnatic music (not in the wrong sense at all). Throughout yesterday's concert, Abhishek was "innovating" in the real sense of the term.

The opener shankarabharanam varnam was brisk; it was preceded by an almost 5-10 minutes of shruti alignment. I was hoping to hear rA rA mA iNTidAka or jAnaki ramaNa and Abhishek sang the former, do my delight. The kalpana swarams involved nice patterns and "poruttams". When he started the malayamArutam aalapana, I was delighted as, among scalar rAgams, that is a very beautiful rAgam. There were shades of Hindustani, but I have no problem with that! Somewhat difficult patterns like R-D, G-N, etc were executed with ease and charm; the influence of BMK on his music was quite evident here.

tAyE yashodA was rendered in pakka TNS style; he took a semi-slow kAlapramAnam and ornamented the kriti with catchy and bright links; like TNS does. The RTP that followed next was nothing short of brilliant. I would normally get annoyed if anyone sings kAnADa without the weight given to the gAndhAram. I remember frowning as soon as he began; but the gimmicks laden phrases and imagination brought many more AhAs than a possibly weighty kAnaDa would have! The tAnam once again had shades of HM, he increased speeds and used every syllable that a purist would say no-no to; nevertheless, his supreme imagination was what mattered to me here and not mere adherence to rules.

The pallavi line, was "sItApatE nApai nIkabhimAnamu lEda". As expected, he sang neraval in khamas, bringing out shades of brOcEva and sitApati. Then came gAnamUrti, kAntAmaNi and bahudAri in which he sang the word "sitApatE" of the pallavi line like famous Tyagaraja- kritis in these raagams.
This was one thing that did not sound new to me, having heard and read about Charumati Ramachandran's similar attempt elsewhere. Maybe GNB or Kalyanaraman or more probably BMK has done this before? I must accept however that it was an exciting delivery! Especially the quick transitions between rAgams and the super fast swarams, that came after the tani.

One tamizh kriti in sAranga came next - it went like - "kaN kalangudE". This was my pick of the concert! Although it sounded very "ghazalish", it was extremely well rendered with deep bhAvam. I could see Abhishek enjoy immensely while he rendered it!

The possibly disappointing part of the concert was the rendition of brovavamma in nIlAmbari. I felt that too much gimmicks in such kritis, is painful, especially if the listener knows the meanings of the lyrics. Thankfully, this was during the end of the concert.

Then one mami gave a chit for enna tavam seidanai; Im sure she must have written all the rest of tukkaDAs (do I need to name them). But he chose to sing only enna tavam and followed with a mangalam.

The lack of a manual tambura or a mike for the electronic tambura perhaps gave indications of lapses here and there especially when there were loud, off-note sounds coming out of nowhere! Later on I realised that that could have been because of a football match going on in the playground outside the hall!

Anantha R Krishnan gave very nice support on the Mridangam. His tani was spectacular and had many intelligent sollus and patterns. Mysore Srikanth gelled well. His kAnaDa aalapana had everything that Abhishek had left out (most note-worthily, the weight in the gAndhAram), so the overall effect was complete!