Vocal concert ~ Sanjay Subrahmanyan @ Toronto, April '97
Sri Sanjay Subrahmanyan gave a good 3-hour vocal concert in Toronto on 12 April, 1997 under the auspices of Bharathi Kala Manram. He was ably supported by Smt.Sandhya Srinath on the violin and Sri R. Srinivasan on the mridangam.
With more modulation and a more rounded style than in his last visit, Sanjay once again communicated his imaginative approach and enthusiastic interpretation od our Classical music. The accompanists gave him their complet cooperation, thus making the afternoon concert thouroughly enjoyable. The main songs were kanukoNtini, in ragam bilahari of Thyagaraja and chakkaniraja, in ragam karaharapriya of Thaygaraja. The ragam-thanam-pallavi was in varAli, with the verse, "ambikai, paradhEvathai, varAl idhO sruthi layamodu" (roughly meaning...Here comes the Goddes with sruthi and laya...). Note the clever insertion of the Raga name in the words. My thanks to sanjay for gicing us a chance to hear this interesting pallavi. This was a small modification of the pallavi originally sung by Sri. T.N.Seshagopalan around 1975, which went as "ambkai, jagadhambikai, varAl idhO, sruthiyodu layamm tharAl idhO."
Sanjay did an excellent bhava-filled virutham. Singing a virutham or a sloka, under the constraints imposed by the words and meaning of the verse, is an art. In my experience, the best expositors of this art were the Thevaram odhuvars like Sri Lalgudi Swaminathan, who passed away recently. The worst performance have been any of the concert artists of yester years who simply used the sloka or virutham as a vehicle to do short alapanas of a few ragas. I am thankful to young artists like Sanjay who are doing justice to this "constrained optimization" problem. I remember Sri T.R.Subrahmaniam saying in one of his lec-dems that singing such viruthams/slokas is an extremely good way to develop one's ability in raga elaboration.