A New Phenonmenon called RG

They are a new phenonmenon called Ranjani Gayatri. Unprecendented sisterly act in carnatic music, to rock all ages with the best of styles (padantharam). It is surprising how they even take the same pause for breathes. Perfectly aligned sangathis and sancharas. It wud be hard to pick a particular instance of a 'start after a pause' (eduppu) where there is a time lag in their pronunciation. There have been duet performances by siblings before - Radha Jayalakshmi, Hyderabad Brothers, Bombay Sisters, Mambalam Sisters. There is also Haripriya Shanmukapriya. But the Ranjani Gayatri duo stands out exceptionally. Reason?

The combination of their voice - one husky base and the other shrilled and high toned; this puts less strain on the same person in the concert to cover all octaves for all raga elaborations. Another reason - either of the sibling is not dominating; both of them share the center stage equally. And either is not less talented or uncomfortable to explore the other realm. Though one covers the base and the other takes the higher octaves during main raga alapanas, its not that Ranjani could not sing higher octaves and Gayatri could not sing the base octaves (mandhaaras sthayi gamakam, panchamam). When they sing madhyama kala krithis, we hear both of them strongly and during abhangs and viruttams, we hear Ranjani exploring higher octaves with equal ease.


This is my second post on the same topic - RG. They are gonna rock the stage all over the world for another 10-15 years. They have recently interviewed to The Hindu that Viruttam is their forte. The Varnam, Viruttam, Abhang will continue for sometime. Then it will become a stereotype and no more a forte. Till then ...God Speed Ranjani Gayatri.

Postscript added later:
They are one mind, one heart, one soulful music, two voices. I still wonder how they end their kalpanaswaras jointly and wudn't give chance to slip of the tongue sangathi changes.