‘APOORVA KRITI MANJARI’ a book and twin audio CD release of 20 select songs of the Trinity.
Notation by Musicologist Sri S.Balachandar of Mumbai
Songs rendered by Smt. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam, Chennai .
At Raga Sudha Hall, Luz, Chennai
On June 10th, 2007 at 6 pm
Dignitaries for the function
Sri Kavalam Narayana Panickar, Vice Chairman, Central Sangeet Natak Academy
Ms. Leela Samson, Director, Kalakshetra
Ms. Ragini Gupta, Cultural Affairs Advisor, American Consulate
Vidwan Sangita Kala Acharya Sri S.Rajam
Dr.V.V.Srivatsa, Secretary, Madras Music Academy
Vidwan Sangita Kala Acharya Sri P.S.Narayanaswamy
The function will be followed by a concert by the Brhaddhwani group
(Sankari Krishnan, Radha Venkataraman, Sowmya Muralidharan, Sudha Harikrishnan, Usha Narasimhan, Violin—Mullaivasal G.Chandramouli, Mridangam- Shertalai R.Ananthakrishnan)
Compere V. Sriram
The cultural heritage of any country is most evident through its systems of music and dance. India has a vast cultural inheritance, rich in diversity. The classical system of music has flourished from very ancient times and is a highly evolved and sophisticated system. There are treatises dating back to as early as 2nd cent BC.
Carnatic Music – the stream of classical music popular in South India--is one of extensive creativity. Carnatic Music is a rich repository of songs called ‘Kritis’ and uses the kritis as a launch pad towards extemporising. The most prominent among the ‘Kriti’ composers have been the Trinity of Syama Sastry, Thyagaraja and Muthuswamy Dikshitar (18th cent). They have made significant contribution to Carnatic music and have influenced the direction of progress of this system of music.
Since there were no tangible means of documentation during their period, their music has come down to us largely through a vocal tradition. Also, Indian systems of music rely heavily on ornamentation of the music and it is not easy to translate these into notation. While the Trinity have composed more than 1200 songs collectively, only about 500 are actually in practice. Some notations are available for the other songs but they are yet to be taken up actively and performed in concerts. This is true of many other noted composers too.
With a view to popularizing these kritis, VS Classics and BSV Trust have come forward to record some of these for posterity. In this first project, ‘Apoorva Kriti Manjari’ (Book I), twenty songs of the Trinity have been notated in simple, easily read and understood form of notation by eminent musicologist Shri S.Balachandar of Mumbai. The book carries the notation in Tamil and English scripts.
To make optimum use of technology and facilitate audiovisual learning, an audio recording of these songs is being appended to the book. Well-known musician of Chennai, Smt. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam has rendered the songs.
The formal launch of the Book ‘Apoorva Kriti Manjari’ (with audio CD) will be on 10th June 2007.