Ravikiran's Surati Pada Varnam | Punnagai azhahil | Leela Samson & team | Dance concert

Punnagai azhahil mayangi vizhunden is a weighty pada varnam in the Carnatic Indian raga Surati on Lord Muruga, with an interesting tailpiece after charanam swaras that leads back to the pallavi, this creation of Ravikiran has been choreographed and/or interpreted by leading dancers including Smt Padma Subramanian, Smt Vasantalakshmi & Shri Narasimhachari in the past. This was among the pieces presented in a special event Dance Margam concert of Ravikiran's Compositions for Brahma Gana Sabha by Smt Leela Samson & various talented dancers on 5 Jan 2018 to an overflowing audience that included some of the top exponents of Bharatanatyam, Kuchippudi as well as leading musicians.

Dance: Renjith Babu & Vijna Vasudevan
Direction: Dr Leela Samson

Vocal: Anahita & Apoorva Ravindran
Nattuvangam: Girish Madhu
Mrdangam: Karthikeyan Ramanathan
Flute: Sujith Nayak
Violin: Sanjay Suresh

Sangeet Samrat Chitravina N Ravikiran (www.ravikiranmusic.com), hailed as the "Mozart of India" (Wisconsin State Journal) and renowned for his "Teasing precision & dazzling effects" (New York Times) and for "Taking his music to new audiences" (CNN TV) discovered a new raga, Choodamani at age 2 and composed his first full piece at age 11. Youngest to win the President of India's Award for artistic excellence and a number of other honours, he has collaborated with frontline artists of several genres including Classical, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Pop, Chinese, South American, African and Middle Eastern.

Highlights:

* Over 800 compositions
* 5 languages - Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada
* Music and dance forms: Geetam, Varnam, Krti, Tillana, Padam, Pada Varnam, Javali, Chindu, Bhajan, Kavuttuvam, Shabdam and his own inventive forms like Swarakrti (krti form but sans lyrics) and Shiruppuhazh (a la Arunagirinathar's Tiruppuhazh)
* Operas, dance productions: Ramayana, Mahabharata, Lakshmi Prabhavam, Vinayaka Vaibhavam, Almighty Trinity, Savitri, Cosmos, Illusion to Resolution, Panchakriya, Pushed to the Edge etc.
* Ragas Discovered: Keshavapriya, Vaishnavi, Katyayani, Mohini (dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi), Veetavanam (in honour of Beethoven), Andhakarini etc.

Unique Works: Ravikiran is perhaps the first to:
* Compose in each of the 35 talas of Carnatic Music,
* Compose the 72-mela-ragamalika geetam.
* Explore "Schematic svarakshara" pieces (where svaraksharas themselves have an underlying theme in each line like SR - RR - GR - MR or S,D - R,D - G,D- M,D etc)
* Employ innovative approaches to incorporating Raga-mudra (name of raga) in multiple ways within the same composition, "Adharam nee enakku" where the raga name Kedaram appears directly or suggestively 8-9 times).
* Other creations: Eulogies on Vyasa, Ramanuja, Ramana Maharshi, Kanchi Paramacharya, Mahatma Gandhi, M S Subbulakshmi, Guru Chitravina Narasimhan and social critiques or commentaries.