Sikkil Gurucharan Reinvents Genre and Style

HYDERABAD: It is amazing to find top grade Carnatic musicians being brilliant academicians too. Add to the list the scholar musician Sikkil Gurucharan, the grandson of flautist Sikkil Kunjumani. It is unbelievable that he already has three decades of “concert experience”. Every bit of his 165-minute essay echoed his mastery.

The music scenario has changed. At the Madras Mecca of music, the winds of change in evolving patterns are coming alive. An entire new brand of brains and voices are constantly reinventing the genre, and their style. The predictability of the format is being altered. Sikkil’s early part of the concert bares the evidence to this.

He started with the Ragamalika Varnam Chalamela Ra which has the five ragas of the Pancharatna Kritis — Natai, Goula, Aabheri, Varali, and Sri Ragam. Innovatively, he took the Malahari geetam Sri Gananādha as the customary invocation to Lord Ganesha. This innovative introduction and its acceptance (going by the applause) is indicative of how change will always stay. Both the experimental artist and the liberal listener are out there. This arguably augurs well for the art.

After a warm-up recital in Sahana: Vandanamu Raghunandana, Gurucharan took a detailed account of Pantuvarali. He gave the raga its rightful frontal space and placed its nuances with ease. Ennagānu Rāma Bhajanaof Ramadasa was a mixture of clear grammar and emotive strength. Rāmaciluka nokada penci prema mātalādanepacame up for neraval and was characterised by arithmetical precision. He chose to stop before the chant Rāma Rāma Rāma and detailed the phrase with mathematical permutations. All along he ensured to keep the emotive element largely in place. He then presented Ānanda natana prakāsam in Kedaram on his way to a detailed presentation of the soulful Māyamma in Āhiri. In the final moments of the rendition nāto mātlādammā was such an ethos filled presentation that it could well have tempted Māyammā to respond.

The main piece of the evening was Nata Bhairavi. The followers of the raga are familiar with the Kriti Sri Valli Devasenapathe of Papanasam Sivan, short, sweet, meaningful. After presenting the ragam in detail, when he went on to present the Tānam, a melody filled Tānam, the audience may have had a transient disappointment when the Pallavi was rendered. The Pallavi was from the popular kriti. They were in for a pleasant surprise when he presented the kriti.

The thani avarthanam: Ananta Krishnan on the Mridangam and Srinivasa Gopalan on Morsing, was a value add in the serves. To have a string percussion is always a welcome added attraction. Both the artists kept up the tempo and the quality of the RTP. Special mention must be made about the promising talent of yet another youngster making the waves. Kamala Kiran defied his age and experience and matched the grand presentation of Sikkil. In contrast to a tendency to reduce the RTP to a formality, it was redeeming that most of the artists at Kalasagaram, this year ensured the depth filled RTP was the main piece. The detailed Pantuvarali, the soul filled Āhiri notwithstanding and the quick kritis in between did not steal the detailed delineation of Nata Bhairavi.

As is with most others, Sikkil fell to the temptation of precis of voicing multiple ragams in the RTP. So came Nalinakanthi, Kapi, Vagadeshwari. He moved with predictability in the last ten odd minutes to present a Tamil kriti on Lord Subramanya in Behag, a Thillana in a Ragamalika.

His conclusion with the Mangalam was also the “beating of the retreat” of Seven sublime concerts. All but one of them well rendered to capacity audiences – most going home satiated on multiple counts.

Organising Secretary Ramamurthy said, “This experience over the last week has raised the bar of expectations. It has reiterated that Hyderabad is a great growing atmosphere for Carnatic music.”