Sunday, April 16, 2006

Thyagaraja Aradhana - Cleveland

This weekend RS and I went to the Thyagaraja Aradhana in Cleveland, OH. We were accompanied by two of our friends Satish and Sujan who are into Carnatic music. RS and I were looking for a relaxed weekend away from our to-do lists.

The aradhana is cleveland is a week long musical concert series showcasing works of the composer Thyagaraja.

On Saturday morning, the aradhana started with Pancharathna krithis, sung by professional and amateur musicians; these are the most famous work of Thyagaraja, I was so happy to recognize the first one :)

The highlight of Saturday was the carnatic music rendition by Padma Shri Sudha Ragunathan, she has a voice which is simply out of this world, the whole concert which lasted for about three and a half hours was just mesmerizing. We were also very lucky because we got the best seats in the house, 20 feet away from her on stage. I have never heard her sing before, but she had me hooked onto her voice from the very first song, how I wish she sang some ghazals :)


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On Sunday morning we attended a recital by the sisters Gayatri and Ranjani, they ended the recital to a standing ovation on the rendition of a Marathi abhang by Sant Gyaneshwar.

I have no clue when it comes to the Ragam, Tanam and Pallavi's of Carnatic music, but the trip to Cleveland was worth it.

4 comments:

dinesh said...

I made the mistake of reading ramya's write up on this first !

But, this was good too ! :)

kamal said...

Thanks Dinu, yeah I know ramya's is better. You think I was gonna compete with her in writing? :) .. maybe I will! :P

RS said...

The highlight of the trip was probably the fact that you enjoyed the concert so much, you even surprised me! :)

kamal said...

RS,

(Old man speaking ..coughing) Cool, after all these years, I have it in me to surprise you. :)