Nadasurabhi, a Koramangala based cultural service organisation, has been serving the community of music lovers for over two decades.
On Sunday, 20th March they held the concert of Nisha Rajagopal from Chennai and the accompanying artists consisted of B Raghuram on violin, HS Sudhindra on Mridangam and Omkar Rao on Ghatam.
The concert was extremely well presented with nice selection of kritis, appropriate elaboration, very well crafted pallavi, very strong and impressive voice, easy and soothing in the higher registers and pleasant mannerisms. The concert started and ended on time, as per Nadasurabhi’s standard practise.
Nisha Rajagopal started off with navaragamalika varnam of patnam Subramania Iyer, finished it quickly and moved on to sarasangi composition of swathi Thirunal. A good and pretty long abhogi alapana came in soon, violin following more or less in the same pattern.
Nannu brova was the song chosen. The artist sang detailed rounds of swaras in second speed. Percussion support was impressive here.
Nisha started her kedaragaula alapana at an unusual place in the high notes and sang some delightful phrases. Few dull moments in between, but she concluded well. Violin return was good.
Saraguna palimpa, poochi masterpiece was impressive. There was very good neraval and good kalpana swaras too.
The customary honouring of the artists at this point wasn’t appropriately timed. Only 4 songs into the concert, it was obvious that a pallavi is in the offing. It could have shifted it post the pallavi.
Pallavi, probably was the highlight of the evening. Commendable kalyani alapana by both artists. Raghuram played some impressive passages in his turn. Pallavi was structured brilliantly. Both in the tAla selection and the nadai. She probably did an ‘atheetha eDuppu’ (panka- ja , with ja on samam?) . Very cleverly crafted and executed trikalam, with Sudhindra doing some great job. Ragamalika swaras were chosen well, with raga names ending with kalyani and incorporating the raga names in the pallavi line.
There wasn’t much scope post the pallavi, but she sang a good Tamil viruttam and a Kannada devarnama before closing down. Overall, it was an extremely enjoyable concert experience.
– K P Jayan,
an ardent music lover and critic
Nisha Rajagopalan enthralls at Nadasurabhi
