Friday Review
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Chennai and Tamil Nadu
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Memorable experience
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NRI Hemanth Kumar and his family soaked in Carnatic music at the Music Academy.
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Photo : N. Sridharan
Enthusiast: T. K. Hemanth Kumar.
The December 2007 Carnatic music festival at the Music Academy TTK auditorium turned out to be the most cherished experience for NRI music enthusiast T.K.Hemanth Kumar and his family. Having returned to Chennai after a 16-year overseas stint, Hemant
h had the immense craving to experience, with his family, the Carnatic music tradition of South India.
A surprise gift of two complimentary seasons passes at the Music Academy opened an exciting window of opportunity for the family. The festivity began with Ravikiran’s Chitraveena being the second senior concert of the entire line-up. Hemanth considers this as a very fortuitous start of the season.
As a child Hemanth had the opportunity to perform with Ravikiran and his brother (vocalist) Sashikiran during their school events at Kendriya Vidyalaya (CLRI). Ravi’s phenomenal concert at the Academy on December 16 was immediately followed by Gayatri Venkataraghavan’s immaculate vocal recital. Every subsequent day of the festive fortnight was a day of eager anticipation.
Hemanth is senior manager for an MNC and he had to shuffle between his office and personal engagements to try and catch as many artists and performances as feasible.
Immaculate speakers
Hemanth is all praise for the newly installed Bose Speaker Systems that provided immaculate acoustics across the entire auditorium.
The reclining seats on the ground floor were remarkably comfortable, he says. Hemanth and his family managed to attend about 15 concerts in total.
The performances of Ranjani and Gayatri sisters, the Mandolin brothers, Unni Krishnan, T.M.Krishna, and O.S.Arun were memorable.
The compositions in various regional languages (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and even Marathi) truly revealed music as the uniting factor among all our superficial diversity. The audience consisted of people from other States and abroad. It was heart-warming to even find a Sikh gentleman attending the concerts regularly, observes Hemanth.
Hemanth is also impressed by the meticulousness with which car parking was attended to. He found the usherers inside the hall, the staff at the counter and the caterers at the cafeteria pleasant. As a disappointment he cites the closing down of the pan shop. Some visitors, perhaps messed up the premises prompting the staff to take this step, he feels.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
|
