It is getting tough to organize music festivals

Budgets for the mandalis has been going up and up. So organizing the music festivals for Sri Ramanavami is hard work for the hosts.

This year seems to have been a trying one for the men at the mandalis. Sponsorship has been slow in coming and sponsors have had tight fists.

As each organizer tries to schedule some top end artistes to present an attractive festival, the team has to consider the fee that artistes seek. Top end artistes from Chennai command fees that makes the hosts think twice before signing them up.

"Today, even Bangalore artistes want to be paid well," says one organizer. "We cannot grudge them the fee that is rightfully theirs but they must also consider the capacity of the host."

Bangalore's rasikas are also demanding; after all this season is their best time to listen to the best.

And if there is one host who feels letdown it is the one in Chamarajpet. The team here is cut up that the fest is treated as a religious-arts event and some governments want to keep away from such colors.

But with the BJP projected to form the next government in Delhi, this team hopes to see great seasons ahead.

Yakshagana too . . .

Music dominates the Sri Ramanavami season at the mandalis. But dance and dance-drama also finds a space at some venues.

Keshava, the curator of the festival for Vani Kala Kendra in Basaweshwara Nagar has been making space for dance too. This year, he scheduled two Yakshagana performances. And he will be pleased with the audience turnout for the two programmes.

On April 29 evening the well known Yakshagana troupe - Sri Idagunji Mahaganapati Yakshagana Mandali led by Karemane Shivananda Hegde - was on stage, presenting ' Seeta-paharana'.
It ran for almost two hours and held the audience till the end.

Shivananda Hegde's troupe is on the road often, for shows. And when the artistes have a show anywhere in Karnataka, they hire a van and do not mind the road travel. "We have so many costumes and props for our shows so being on the road all by ourselves helps," says Hegde whose base is near Honavar in North Karnataka.

Summertime at the Mandali's base is holidays for those who are attending the Yakshagana gurukula. Classes begin as the monsoon breaks out.

The veena and the violin . . .

At a recent concert for Vani Kala Kendra at the Vani school campus in Basaweshwara Nagar, Suma Sudhindra, the city-based veena artiste had Nalina Mohan, the violinist alongside her besides Anoor Ananthakrishna Sharma on the mridangam and Narayanamurthy on the ghatam.

Photo features Suma Sudhindra and Nalina Mohan.

Dr. Abdul Kalam to decorate vidwan M. Chandrasekaran

Former president of India, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam is expected to grace the special event hosted by Sree Rmaseva Mandali at its Chamarajpet venue where a music festival has been on since early April.

The event is on May 1 evening, and on this occasion the S V Narayanaswamy Rao Memorial Award will be decorated on the senior vidwan and violinist, M. Chandrasekaran from Chennai.
The visually impaired vidwan will join his daughter Bharathi to present a violin concert.

On May 3, another great violinist, L. Subramaniam is to be decorated with an award. The hosts have invited the Reserve Bank of India governor, Dr Raghuram Rajan to be the guest at this event and are keeping their fingers crossed on his presence here.

Photo here shows a poster at the venue. 'God of Violin', is how it describes L. Subramaniam

Evening of the techies . . with a maestro

Bangalore's techies on stage. That was the scene on Monday, April 28 when the special vent-veena-violin concert got underway at Chamarajpet.

The trio - H K Venkataraman ( violinist),  G. Ravikiran ( flute) and Ashwin Anand ( veena) - are all wellplaced and experienced techies in this city and they perform together quite often.
On Monday, they had a great artiste alongside - mridangam maestro Umayalpuram Sivaramam from Chennai.

Having come in early to the venue, the artistes had time to interact with the maestro, backstage. Seen having a long discussion was ghatam artiste Giridhar Udupa who also performed in the concert.

TMK's concert generates much debate on the sidelines

The refreshment tent at the Fort High School in Chamarajpet isn't  a great place to have a cup of coffee or a just-cooked snack.

But the past few days, conversation between rasikas who hang out here before a concert has been on T M Krishna's concert which was on Sunday, April 27 evening.

TMK's concerts nowadays generate much debate and many rasikas under the Big Top had their own strong views; some had left the venue midway, not happy with the unexpected; some stayed on till the end. There were close to 3000 people that evening.

A stage for young artistes

There are some positive notes from this season of music. It provides, in some places a stage for Bangalore's up and coming musicians.

One evening this week, young vocalist Mysore N. Srinath with mridangist Narendra and violinist Archana Matre were on stage at the festival of Sree Ramaseva Mandali in Chamarajpet. They had begun the concert at about 5 p.m. and may have had a dozen people as audience, half of whom were family. ( the photo here is of the three artistes on stage)

And yet the trio carried on with their calling. The hosts could not afford to put on all the lights nor the fans and the shaman may not have been the best place to listen to music on a  day Bangalore bore the heat at about 36degrees. But Srinath and Co. did what they had been invited to.

Young artistes are get a stage at the festival in Seshadripuram and at Vani Kala Kendra; in fact at the latter's venue some of the youngsters are those who learn music/dance at Vani'w campus training and their concerts are well publicized.

The fact that these young artistes get their names into the festival brochures does help to get the buzz around.

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