Saturday, October 11, 2008

The Frame and the Painting - Beautiful Picture

Here are two guys who went to the same school who kept in touch and as their professional careers matured, thought they can take the best of their worlds and create something nice or nicer. I am referring to Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil Gurucharan after I listened to their concert (can you believe it was free!!!) called Madhirakshi today. 

Easily one of the best musical experiences that I have been to in a long time. 

The thing that gets to you is the voice of Gurucharan that was enhanced by the Piano of Anil and the Ganjira of Purushottam.  Suttum Vizhicudar thaan, then an ashtapadi followed by Ksheerasagara....It went on. One amazing song after an another. They covered Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi with ease. Language, obviously, did not matter. Music Did!

There was a piece where they allowed the Ganjira to have a solo play. It was the piece written by Kalki about a lady waiting for Muruga. She goes on to say that after she has seen her love, how she finds happiness in solitude. This was the portion of the song that they played. It did strike me odd that the thani piece was tagged to this song! A friend with whom I was discussing this suggested that may be the Kanjira was being played alone to reflect the solitude! I thought that it was an interesting take to the whole positioning of the thani piece in the concert.

After the vote of thanks they did an encore piece, Omana Thinkal. The audience was transfixed as if the lullaby was for them.

Amazing experience! Worth doing it again. Sikkil is part of my December must hear list!

PS: The Frame is what Anil referred to his Piano and the Painting is what he referred to Gurucharan's voice