Sarasadala Nayana - IndianRaga

Here's yet another piece I worked on for IndianRaga. I learned this song when I was about 10 along with my sister, from Smt. Ranganayaki Sridharan - my guru at the time. One of the rarer compositions by Dikshitar in one of my favorite ragas, I'll always be grateful to Ranganayaki Mami for teaching me this. I learned the kriti in Tishra Triputa thalam. My co-singer here - Kamaladeepthi Vempati - had learned it in Chaturshra Jhampa though, and her reasoning that the first line fit the latter much better since then the second 'na' of "nayana" would land exactly on beat made sense to me and we went with that. Don't mind all the extra smiles and nodding :) Consider them unavoidable side effects of the medium.

If you like this do let me know, and pass it around to friends!

Bindumalini Thillana - IndianRaga

Here's my second production for IndianRaga - a resurrection of a piece I had posted for the first time on this blog, nearly ten years ago! (See here.) It's a thillana composed by yours truly, with lyrics by my mother Smt. Viji Bhakthavatsalam. The team that came together for this production has done a fabulous job and I'm so grateful to them for bringing my composition alive.



If you liked this, please share widely and spread the word!

Kalyanarama - IndianRaga

Happy 12th, Octaves!

After resisting joining IndianRaga for the last 4-5 years that they have existed - due to being camera shy and thinking of myself as more a singer than a performer among other things - I finally took the plunge. While it was quite nice collaborating with other musicians, I ended up joining and/or leading 8-9 productions in all and it turned out to be an extraordinary amount of work for several months - not just creative, but also logistical and technical. But it's gratifying to see the final output and to be recognized for it. The first of my productions - a group Carnatic piece - was released a week ago:


If you like it, please do share it around and spread the word.

I'm very excited about some of my other productions to be released over the next six months or so. I'll update this space as and when they get released. Stay tuned!

Concert for Nada Vipanchi

I recently sang a concert for Nada Vipanchi in Raleigh, NC, thanks to my cousins Ashok and Godha. As always, I was extremely nervous before the concert. And as always there's a million flaws, but overall, I think it went fine. I particularly enjoyed singing a pallavi in Bahudari, for which I'd taken the first line from my mom's lyrics for the varnam I had composed eons ago.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6XG7q4FaVQFMtq9X-nUS6_Qef7HGDO-x