GNB Centenary Festival 2010 - London UK - a write up

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IndyMuse

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Jul 9, 2010, 3:31:53 AM7/9/10
to Carnatic.Resource
The Gudalur Narayanaswamy Balaburamaniam aka GNB's [1910-1965]
Centenary Festival at UK was a grand success. The celebrations were
held on both days of the July 4th week-end in east London. We were
lucky to have the most popular and learned artistes who enthralled the
audience to a feast of unforgettable music fitting the occasion.
Another feather for the London rasikas' caps - due to tireless efforts
of a few music lovers.

The festival boasted the who-is-who of UK and Indian artistes line-up
comprising of Smt Charumathi Ramachandran, Smt Sudha Raghunathan, Shri
Trichur Ramachandran, Smt Bhuashany Kalyanaraman, Selvi Subhashree
Ramachandran, Dr Jyotsna Srikanth, Shri B V Raghavendra Rao, Shri
Neyveli Skanda Subramaniam, Shri R N Prakash, Chidambaranathan and
Trichy Murali - names mentioned in particular order.

GNB is grandly and undoubtedly acknowledged as the architect of the
contemporary carnatic concert and raga delineation formats amongst
other novelties he introduced into carnatic music. To keep up with
this theme, in the concert series, we had generous sprinklings of rare
and oft heard ragas like Sivasakti, Gavati, Madhyamavathi, Takka,
Shankarabharana and Kamavardhini in the festival.

We had a short "shruti bedha" in Shankarabharana from Gandhara
[resulting in Todi] and Madhyama [resulting in Kalyani] by Smt Sudha.

Dr. Sivakumar and Trichur Ramachandran introduced us to various
aspects of GNB through their educative talks.

GNB painted a clear picture of the raga in an unhurried way with his
key signature phrases, developed it step by little step, made the raga
interesting and entire, whether the alapana was brief or detailed. He
was the first graduate to take up music as a profession - the icing on
the sweet-voice [timbre] cake was his personal charisma. Sudha
Raghunathan's and Ramachandran's intricate 'brighas' reminded us of
the legend for which he was famous.

The festival opened with an instrumental orchestra conducted by UK
based versatile violinist Dr. Jyotsna Srikanth - the senior students
brought near-perfect harmony. The second day featured another UK based
instrumental orchestra.

Smt Bhushany Kalyanaraman's mellifluous rendition of Sivananda in
raga Pantuvarali was captivating. There were more non-GNB kritis than
expected in the concerts - which was the only lacuna.

In GNB’s music, the flow of the kriti dictated the flow of the
alapana, ensuring its distinctiveness for each kriti. Examples would
be the alapana-s he did for Marakatavalli and Sree Subramanyaya
namaste in Kambhoji.

His raga alapana was of two kinds – the first preceded kriti-s, while
the other, far more elaborate form prefaced ragam-tanam-pallavi.

Dr. Navaratnam and Raveendra Armugam who organised this charity event
to fund Jaffna Jaipur Center for Disability Rehabilitation helped us
in a way to remember the true legend in the most perfect way. C
ompère Ashanti Omkar was exquisite and seamlessly integrated the
different components of the festival as though it were one.

Long live the GNB in our hearts.

Srikanth Sharma

PS - There are a few more weekend concerts and Indian music workshops
that is being organised. Let me know if you are interested to attend
by emailing me at sharm...@gmail.com. These are taking place in East-
London
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