The Season's Best

Pongal announces the passage of Margazhi, my favourite month of the year. With the extended Season grinding to a halt after over 2 months of song and dance, here come the promised awards. Mind you this is based on a sampling of less than 30 events and does not exactly spring from great depths of profundity:

Best Concert - The contenders were Sanjay's performances at the Academy and the NGS, the Malladis at Brahma Gana Sabha and Pantula Rama at the Academy. Sanjay gets it for his Academy Concert thanks to a brilliant Kambhoji. Parts of the concert, including the Kambhoji can be sampled here: http://www.sangeethamshare.org/tvg/SEASON_2008/40.Sanjay_Subramaniam/

Best Alaapana - Sanjay's Kambhoji competes with his own Darbari at the NGS the Malladi's Charukeshi. The Charukeshi bags it for sheer innovation. It had Voleti's stamp all over it - the unexpected halts, the varja prayogas. None of Voleti's own renditions are available but this was pretty close to the maestro's standards.

Best Pallavi - There was surprisingly little to choose from this year. Sanjay chose to the Hindustani way not only in terms of ragas but also revvving up the tempo instead of Trikaalam, Tisram and so on. I heard carely 4-5 Pallavis that had a Tisram. Krishna's Pallavi at Kalarasana was neatly executed but the violinist struggled which means that it was probably not discussed so it gets ruled out on the grounds of medai etiquette. His wife, Sangeetha, rendered a complicated Pallavi very well but fumbled in the korvai. The Malladis Trikaalam/Tisram suite was flawless but the Pallavi had a rather plain rhtyhmic structure. That leaves Pantula Rama's 2 Pallavis at Carnatica's fest and the Academy - the latter was the more complex one with 3 nadais weaved in but loses out because there was no Tisram. The one at Carnatica was plainer on the surface but had very dicey stress points and a Tisram was done - that's the Pallavi of the season then.

Best Tani Avarthanam/Percussion Support - Karaikkudi Mani stole the show with his trademark korvai composition for Hyderabad Brothers at BVB. Trichy Sankaran played some interesting variations for the Malladis at Brahma Gana Sabha as well as TM Krishna at Kalarasana. Patri Sathish Kumar was another contender with two brilliant displays for Sanjay at NGS and Shashank at the Academy. Karaikkudi Mani gets my vote through. A notable mention among Upa-pakkavadyakaras is Bangalore Rajsekhar who really dismissed my apprehensions about this instrument with his fine accompaniment for Sanjay's Academy concert.

Best Upcoming Artiste(s) - I heard a few this season but despite my initial optimism there was nothing that really stood out. Amrutha Venkatesh sang a highly mature Sri Rajagopala (Saveri) at the Academy that gets her my approval. Other youngsters who impressed me were Prasanna Venkataraman and TNS Krishna. On the Mrudangam, little known Jaya Balaji played brilliantly for Prasanna while SJ Arjun Ganesh made one sit and up and take notice for his exquisite patterns for Sandeep Narayan at the Academy. On the violin, I did not hear anything remarkable among the juniors although the general standards were quite high. I particularly missed Nagai Sriram this season while my other favourite, Charumathi Raghuraman, found herself wrong footed by Abhisek Raghuram's Lakshana-defying antics at the Academy.

Most Talked-about Concert - TM Krishna deciding to take up the Bhairavi as the main piece - indeed introducing a Ragam Tanam Varnam for the first time was the concert that rasikas were talking about although for all the wrong reasons. Even those who favoured the idea, largely felt that it was not a particularly successful experiment.

Best Auditorium - The Academy wins hands down in all respects and the sound system really took the game away from the competition. Among others, I found myself spending a lot of time at the festivals Carnatica and Brahma Gana Sabha but the Academy was in a different league. I did not get to visit the Krishna Gana Sabha this year.

Best Canteen - I refuse to cast my vote this year! With Jayaraman out of action and the academy installing a nobody, meal times were full of gloom...

That's pretty much all I have on Music Season 2008. Have to wait until Season 2009 comes around :-(