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Vidya Shankar’s Veena Concert – A report
 Flowers floating in urulis, the light casting entrancing shadows through the woven cane lampshades, its hard to improve on the ambience in the Musiri Chamber concerts. Today's Veena recital by octogenarian Vidya Shankar was scintillating enough to cause the audience to forget even the ambience.
Vidya Shankar has the credit of being related to two noble laureates, S Chandrashekar and Sir C V Raman. Her father C S Iyer was a disciple of a direct disciple of Syama Shastri (great grandson of Syama Sastry of the Trinity) and that accounts for her mastery of this family’s pieces in her repertoire.
Starting off with a varnam, she went on to mahAgaNapatim in nATa and then came Muttuswami Dikshitar's vINApustakadhAriNIm in vEgavAhini. It was a tough choice on deciding whether to close my eyes and loose myself in the melody or be hypnotised by the quick and precise movements of her fingers.
These two pieces were followed by Syama Sastry’s mIna nayana brOva in darbAr and Tyagaraja's viDajAladurA in janaranjani. Her AlApana in bhairavi was definitely the highlight of the concert. It was at a slow leisurely pace with assiduous attention to the gamakas and anusvarAs. The music, the movement of her fingers, the very beauty of the vINa as an instrument made all of us, for those few minutes, forget much of the cares and concerns of our times. The AlApanai was followed by a Tyagaraja kriti shrI raghuvara
suguNAlaya.
In tune with her Syama Sastry repertoire, she played En nEramum nin nAmam in pUrvi kalyANi while SP Ramh, a student of Lalgudi Jayaraman ably sang the song. A padam in aThANa, a rare tillAna in yadukula kAmbOji in the khaNDa tripuTa tALam and finally a scintillating madhyamAvati mangaLam by Syama Sastri brought the concert to a joyous close.
Tiruvidaimarudur Sankaran
(Mridangam) and Avudayarkoil H Subramanyam on the Gethu, a rare Veena shaped instrument that was played like the xylophone ably supported her. It appeared to be suited for both sruti and for
tALa.
For a budding rasika, it was a fascinating experience to see at close quarters an experienced professional handling such a graceful instrument with finesse and in hearing the Gethu. Memories of the AlApana, the tillAna and the other compositions are sure to linger on in the minds of the attendees for a long time to come.
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