Ganga-Kaveri Fusion Concert

Ganga Kaveri Instrumental Fusion Concert
South Florida – May 2007

One of my favorite foods is “Aviyal”. It is a South Indian dish which is a blend of vegetables cooked in rich coconut sauce with very mild spices. When eaten with rice items or “adai” (spicy pancake made from lentil paste) it is heavenly. Likewise in art forms, there has always been and will always be a great desire among the artists to blend the various art forms to create tasteful presentations. Fusion of art forms done in an uncompromising manner can produce fantastic results. Selection of art forms to fuse is an art by itself. If it is done carelessly, “Aviyal” can become “Avishal” (rotten) borrowing one of the pungent statements my father would make who was an excellent connoisseur of food and music.

Carnatic music and Hindusthani style music has always blended together extremely well. Many of you will recall the classic Jugal Bandi concert between Balamurali Krishna and Bhimsen Joshi. Fusion of Indian and Western style music can also be very tasteful, for example when Pandit Ravi Shankar played with Yehudi Menuhin it was another classic. Recently South Florida music fans heard how carnatic music could blend well with Jazz.

Ganga-Kaveri is a fusion of two extremely talented flautists, Vidwan Pranesh in the carnatic style and Suramani Pravin Gokhindi in the Hindusthani style. The team was led by the senior mridangam artist, Vidwan Anoor Anantha Krishna Sharma. He was accompanied by Vidwan S. Madhusudhana on the tabla and Vidwan Arun Kumar a multi-talented percussionist on the Rhythm pads and drums.

The main peace of the concert was a blend of the ragam Mohanam in Carnatic style and Bhoop in the Hindusthani style. I have a special place in my heart for the five note ragams like Mohanam, Hindolam, Suddha Dhanyasi etc. Mohanam can be heard at any time of the day, but it sounds especially great in the evening time. What a great choice! The flautists played without compromising their style of training. Sri Gokhindi on the Hindusthani bansuri, a basal flute, had better control of the microphone by moving closer and farther away from it to create phenomenal effects that kept the audience highly engrossed while Sri Pranesh on the carnatic style shriller flute had an impeccable grasp of the ragam and rendered a superb performance. During the alapana the musicians will hand off to each other after both of them staying in the same note for a little bit. In some places the hand-off could have been a bit cleaner. When the Carnatic flautist stayed on one note for a long time we could not figure out if it was feedback from the sound system or flute was just loud. Controlling the volume of the carnatic flute would have made the concert even more enjoyable.

Sri Sharma on the Mridangam, who was also the leader of the group, was phenomenally gifted with his clean and clear strokes. The Thala Vadhya Kucheri during the main piece was excellent. Frankly though, the drums did not do a thing for me. I guess I need to get more used to drums in an Indian classical music concert. However, when Sri Arun Kumar played the morsing and synthesized thavil on the pads it blended very well with the rest of the orchestra. The blending of Sri Madhusudhana’s Tabla with the Mridangam felt seamless.

The folksy “pahadi” ragam was very catchy. Sri Gokhindi he took out the littlest flute I have seen and played in a very high pitch. True to the name of the ragam it brought out the images of a cowherd playing by the mountains. However, I am not a very big fan of high shruti instruments or singers for that matter. Solo renditions of Marwa ragam in the Hindusthani style and Vachaspathe in the Carnatic style were very enjoyable. The popular thukkada songs Krishna Nee Begane Baro and Payoji Maine towards the end of the concert were very pleasing.

Hollywood Center of Performing Arts provided a fantastic ambience for the evening and the event was well attended by a multi-national audience. Overall it was an enjoyable evening complete with dinner and socializing.

Great job by the organizers of Kannada Koota!

B. Seetharaman
Jun 7, 2007