No kidding
There are two music (from music to musicians after some time, as I had quipped in earlier posts) that impressed me in the past few months. I was not able to spend time to write about it though I had wanted to. I could not now recollect how I stumbled upon them. Ah, yes. I had listened to Ranganatha panchakam in youtube and tried to hunt for its mp3. I googled for the song and found the album from which the song sprung from. The album was 'Ranganathaya Namaha' by Chitraveena Ravikiran. The theme of the album is conceptualized by the Maestro (Ranganatha panchakam is also set to tune by him) while his students had sung the kritis. I browsed through the list of singers. One of them caught my attention and led to further browsing of her albums and listen to some songs in youtube.
A voice so perfect for carnatic music. Least nasal accent. Instantly captivated by the depth of her voice, clarity of diction and manodharma, I downloaded all her albums as mp3 from charsur online. I listened to them thoroughly. There was remarkable improvement from 2003 through 2008 to 2010. Then I felt bad that I had missed her concert at SSVT last year. The music resonated in my ears and lingered in my mind for many days. I read about the singer. The musician I am writing is none other than Nisha Rajagopal.
It is not fair to consider her a budding artiste and give her afternoon slots in Jaya TV Margazhi Mahotsavam. In this technologically accessible age where one is easily influenzed by everything, it takes a sharp and steady mind to reason out and make a choice. Looking at Nisha's background, carnatic music as a career is a careful and consicious decision. She has toiled and bloomed to an A-grade artiste and made her own niche. M.S Subbulakshmi Award is befitting her sweat and status.
Having praised her much, I felt there is still something missing in her rendition. The next step is to transcend the audience to a different plane of being. Instead of filling all the pauses with music, she has to place silence and make sharp breaks in her phrases. That is to give that punch in the music , create a variation of effect. She has to learn the art of weaving a neraval with subtle twists (vakrams), pauses, and let the silence resound with the last swaram. That would leave the audience wanting more and spellbound. There is no doubt in me that Nisha will arrive there very soon. I am glad this carnatic musician was not lost in the crowd of software engineers.
Her home page:
Few articles about her:
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