Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Global GNB Centenary Celebrations @Narada Gana Sabha, 10/1/10

The Global GNB Centenary Celebrations were held at Narada Gana Sabha,Chennai from 6th January,2010 to 10th January,2010.

This was done on a very grand scale, organised by Mr.Vijayaraghavan, with the co-operation of a lot of Sabha Secretaries and musicians.

Morning of 10th January had us all assembled at NGS for the Unchavruthi procession of Goddess Rajarajeshwari,the idol personally worshipped by Sri.GNB. The idol was beautifully decorated and it was carried on a palenquin. We walked around NGS and sang GNB kritis in a group.

Musicians who participated:
Smt.Gayathri Venkataraghavan, Smt.Lakshmi Rangarajan,Kum.Nisha Rajagopal,Kum.Subhiksha Rangarajan,Kum.S.M.Vilasini,Sri Abhishek Raghuram,Sri.Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna,Sri.Delhi Muthukumar,Sri.Bharat Sundar and myself.
On the violin was Sri.Bombay Anand, on the Mridangam we had Trivandrum Balaji and on the Kanjira we had Sri.K.V.Gopalakrishnan and Sri.A.Anand.

(Photos Courtesy :Sri.Sampath Rangan and Sri.Trivandrum Balaji.)
















His Highness, The Maharaja of Udaipur was the chief guest and inaugurated the proceedings by taking an Arti of the Rajarajeshwari idol.
















Mridangam Maestro Umayalpuram Sri.K.Sivaraman was a special guest who addressed the gathering.





















We first sang the kriti vara vallabhA ramaNA,rAgam hamsadhwani,in chorus.

This was followed by the kriti sivAnanda kAmavardhani in rAgam kAmavardhani,sung by the lady artists alone. Short neraval rounds were done by Smt.Lakshmi,Kum.Nisha and Kum. Vilasini.















After this the male artists sang the kriti ranjani niranjani in the rAgam ranjani and we were delighted to see TRS Mama joining our group at this juncture.
















Next was the bhairavi rAga kriti gativErevarammA sung in chorus by all of us.

This was followed by a short tani by our percussion artists.




















The next item was a slOkam (vandE mAtaram ambikAm bhagavatIm immortalized by Sri.GNB) sung in different rAgams by Bharat Sundar,Subhiksha,myself,Abhishek and Gayathri Venkataraghavan.

















This was followed by the beautiful kriti paramakripAsAgari in the rAgam yadukulakAmbhOji and with this we finished the unchavruthi procession.















This wonderful unchavruthi was a new and different kind of experience for me. We had to sing without mikes and the entire place vibrated with music that entire morning:-)

3 comments:

Pushkala said...

This is amazing, Great that you are documenting with photos. Very inspiring for youngsters and continuing our great tradition...

Anonymous said...

Very good post.You have described the entire proceedings graphically with beautiful photos. I felt sad that I missed the event when a friend told me that the function was conducted very well. Now from your post I could visualise the whole event.
L.V.Mahadevan

Unknown said...

This is a wonderful post...I felt like I was walking through the procession with the wonderful musicians and feeling the music in the air. Thanks!
Raja..