A golden chance
VENKATESAN SRIKANTH
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Swarna Rethas gave a delightful Carnatic music recital in New Delhi the other day.
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Swarna Rethas was initiated into Carnatic music at the age of six. He first trained under Geetha Sridhar. After being subsequently trained by Indira Ramanathan, He has now been under the tutelage of Sanjay Subramanyan for nearly 10 years. The 26-year-old post-graduate in Mathematics works for a software company in Chennai.
Photo: K.V. Srinivasan
on song Swarna Rethas
This Chennai-based artiste got connected to his Delhi-based accompanying artistes in the first instance. Soon, all the three got connected to the audience, and enthralled them in a Carnatic music concert. Youngster Swarna Rethas from Chennai, along with Delhi’s R. Saravanan (violin) and K. N. Padmanabhan (mridangam), presented a memorable vocal concert of around two hours the other day as part of ‘Thematic Music Concerts — Bhakti Pravaham by rising stars of Carnatic music’. Sree Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha organised the concert along with Lok Kala Manch, in the latter’s auditorium.
Rethas’ presentation of Ramanad Srinivasa Iyengar’s composition “Paramapavana Rama” in raga Poorvi Kalyani bore testimony to his musical talents. His delineation of the raga was scintillating and had considerable depth. In Arunachala Kavirayar’s “Eppadi Manam vandado” in raga Husseni, Rethas brought out the raga’s emotive aspects as well as the composition.
Rethas was fortunate to get theme ‘Rama Rasam’, as there is a wide range of relevant compositions, including those of Tyagaraja and Dikshitar. It would be an irresistible theme for anyone. Rethas made an intelligent selection of compositions and leveraged this opportunity to bring his musical talents to the fore.
Muthuswami Dikshitar’s “Sree Ramam” in raga Narayana Gowlai, a composition rarely taken up in concerts, was the next item Rethas presented. He handled this well. As the recital’s central presentation, Rethas presented Tyagaraja’s “Enduku Dayaradura” in raga Todi. Rethas introduced it with a fine alap. His niraval and swara formats bore testimony to his manodharma talents.
Saravanan on the violin and Padmanabhan on the mridangam provided understanding support. The three could be seen thoroughly enjoying and acknowledging each other’s performance.
Apart from closely following the vocalist, Saravanan’s delineation of ragas Poorvi Kalyani and Todi were enjoyable. So were Padmanabhan’s accompaniment and the tani avartanam (mridangam solo) in Misra Chapu tala.
Though Rethas did put up an impressive show restricting his presentations within the allocated theme, the organiser could have avoided a thematic concert at this stage of his career. The objective of the organisation, presumably, is not to subject such rising stars to any kind of tests.
The other soloist in this two-day event was S.M. Vilasini from Chennai.
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