US-based young Mayuri Vasan was featured in a Carnatic concert by Kalasagaram Secunderabad, at Keyes High School, last week. A student of noted musician Padma Kutty, Mayuri later trained under Delhi Sundara Rajan, S. Sowmya, Suguna Purushotham and Suguna Varadachary during her visits to Chennai. Now in US she is well versed in Western Classical Music and is now preparing to sing in opera too.
Mayuri is blessed with a nice voice that has melody and range. Her sahitya expression — be it Telugu, Tamil or Sanskrit was impressive. She has that theatrical element in her expression and was capable of presenting sahitya a bit animatedly. She opened her show with traditional approach with Kanada varnam of Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar. She presented it impressively moving through two speeds with ease. This set tone and tenor of her concert. She then chose Papanasam Sivan’s composition Mooladhara Murthy in Hamsadhwani and sang it with devotional spirit. This was rendered as preliminary prayer. She then chose to present Divakara Thanujam of Dikshitar in Yadukula Kambhoji. She rendered this number too with the same grip on Bhava. She then sang Krupaya Palaya in Charukesi, Misra Chapu talam of Swati Tirunal. The subsequent number Palukaveminadaivama in Purnachandrika of Tyagaraja set the mood for the main number of the concert and popular one also of Thyagaraja Etavunara in Kalyani. Her basic instincts and capacity to evolve the raga could be noticed in building this raga to high melodic levels. The gamaka structures and modulation made it smarter. The composition she chose in this was another popular number of Thyagaraja that she sang with perfect sahitya expression. There was nereval and the swarakalpana that followed had impressive build with melodic expression. This was followed by Tani avartanam presentation by Shyam Kumar. Violinist Thyagaraju hails from reputed family of violinists and he proved a catalytic agent in elevating the concert’s appeal.
