The annual Akashvani Sangeet Sammelan, a music festival looked forward to by connoisseurs of music, was held this year at 24 centres, including Delhi, last weekend. At the Capital, like in the past years, two concerts, one in Hindustani style and one in Carnatic style, were featured on the same evening. The concert was organised at the auditorium of Chinmaya Mission.
Chennai-based noted vocalist Dr. S. Sowmya was featured in the Carnatic music session, which followed the Hindustani sitar concert of Kolkata’s Pandit Kushal Das. Sowmya’s concert started past 8.30 p.m. that evening. It is usually the time concerts get over and the artist and her accompanists had to start their concert at that time. One understands the logistics and other difficulties of hosting the festival on two evenings, which would have been ideal at least in metros and some big cities. However, advancing the timing of the festival by at least an hour, further shortening the inaugural session and doing away completely with the announcements in between two songs (which in any case, one gets to hear these while the concerts are subsequently broadcast by All India Radio), one feels, could have set a better tone and mood both for the artistes and the audience. In addition, Sowmya’s voice that evening was the not in a fine fettle.
Sowmya began her concert with the popular Saveri raga varnam ‘Sarasuda’ in Adi Tala in two speeds. Being a short concert of about an hour, Sowmya including a varnam in her recital came as a surprise. Sowmya then had to immediately take up a composition for detailed rendition, which was Tyagaraja’s “Raga ratna” in the raga Ritigowla. It was a well rendered composition. Besides, the scholarly touch while she handled the improvisations, namely the raga alapana (though her voice strained while she was traversing at higher notes), niraval of the phrase “Bhagavatottamulu kudi pade kirtamulata” from the charanam portion of the composition and the kalpanaswaras, were noteworthy.
Sowmya’s main item in her recital was Shyama Sastri’s “Ninnu vinaga” in the raga Poorvikalyani. While she sang a scintillating alapana of the raga doing adequate justice, the kalpanaswaras were executed in a rather hurried fashion and did not quite get the required justice it should have got. Sowmya concluded her concert with a Tamil song of Subramania Bharati.
Embar S. Kannan on the violin, Neyveli R. Narayanan on the mridangam and Srirangam S. Kannan on the morsing accompanied Sowmya in this concert. While Embar Kannan’s sketch of both Ritigowla and Poorvikalyani were delightful, the percussionists’ tani avartanam in Misra Chappu Tala, though brief, was engaging. On the whole, a concert that did not give a complete and satisfying concert experience.
The concerts recorded in the 24 centres across the country are scheduled to be broadcast by All India Radio, daily from the October 22 till November end. Akashvani should consider broadcasting all these recordings in their FM channels too on all days for a better listening experience.
