Pantula Rama’s performance was marked by both scholarship and vibrancy

Pantula Rama’s concert at The Music Academy was effervescent, yet emphasised her scholarly approach to singing.

As always, she gave her best both during the pallavi session and the elaborate Dikshitar kriti presentation in keeping with the year’s theme at The Academy — Muthuswamy Dikshitar 250 — to commemorate the composer’s birth anniversary.

The vocalist’s initial Kalyanavasantham raga alapana set the tone for the concert. A much-appreciated ‘Nada loludai’ (Tyagaraja) featured slow and fast kalpanaswaras.

Pantula Rama.
| Photo Credit:
K. Pichumani

‘Sri ramya chittalankara’ (Jayamanohari raga, Tyagaraja) came next. Wishing to launch the Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi early, the vocalist set up a strongly rooted-in-tradition Kedaragowla alapana. She then enhanced the raga’s intricacies with an elaborate tanam before the pallavi, ‘Neelamegadhama venuganalola’ set to Misra chapu tala — the tala was set in mirror image. The singer took the pallavi into the Trikalam rendering followed by kalpanaswaras.

The piece de resistance of the evening was Muthuswamy Dikshitar’s ‘Meenakshi me mudham dehi’ (Gamakakriya also known as Poorvikalyani) filled with the intrinsic raga bhava embellishments; it drew audience appreciation. They kept at it when Pantula Rama established a niraval-swaram suite in this kriti at the words, ‘Veena gana dasha Gamakakriye’ with flourish.

In the tani avartanam that followed, V.V Ramanamurthy on the mridangam and Nerkunam S.Sankar on the kanjira proved their prowess.

Pantula Rama concluded with a javali ‘Cheli nenetlu’ (Paras) and a Khamas tillana composed by Patnam Subramania Iyer.