Ebony and Ivory

First of all, I should thank Vedanth Bharadwaj for having sent me a Facebook Invitation for this concert.

Ebony and Ivory - a concert by Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil Gurucharan accompanied by BS Purushottam on the Kanjira.

On a beautiful Friday evening (24th July 2009) in Kalakshetra, Anil and Guru entertained the audience for about 1.5 hours through some amazing raagas.

The concert was dedicated to the great MS Subbulakshmi. MS's piano, which dates back to almost 1947 was gifted to the Kalakshetra by the MS family. The school already had a piano that belonged to Rukmini Devi. Anil Srinivasan, Leela Samson and a few like minded people decided to restore the piano and celebrate the hard work through a concert. This free concert that was conducted on Kalakshetra premises attracted people like Anita Ratnam, Aruna Sairam and Unnikrishnan.

Anil played both pianos. MS's piano had been recently restored and did not have the capacity to stand a whole concert. So Anil just played one song on that one. All other songs were played on the other one.

All through the concert, Anil explained about how the piano was restored and the effort that had gone into the concert. He also talked about every song, gave a bit of background and history when it was required.

The first one was a ragamalika - Sindhu Bhairavi, Kalyanavasantha, Poorvikalyani, Neelambari and Madhayamavathi. It was such a free flowing music from Guru and Anil on the piano. The transitions from one raagam to another was very good and when it came towards Neelambari, it sounded so sweet that there was a feeling of happiness rushing through me.

Gurucharan also sang "Naan Oru Vilayaattu Bommaiyyaa" and the music was played on MS' piano.

There were two Annamacharya Krithis that were also sung. I forgot the songs. I think one was set in Pantuvarali.

There is no Sikkil-Anil concert without one from the albums they have released perviously. So Guru embellished the concert with Poonguyil from his album Maayaa. This Kalki Krishnamurthy song was set in the raagam Kaapi.


The last piece was Hari Tumharo set in Darbari Kanada and this song reminded me of Malare Mounama from the movie Karnaa and Vedant told me that even Poo Maalai Vaangi Vanthaal from Sindhu Bhairavi was quite similar.

Even though the concert seemed to be very quick, it was a great experience to see some stalwarts around me. It was simply wonderful to see the pride that everyone took in associating themselves with the MS Family or Kalakshetra. Whoever came on stage, gave us anecdotes about the piano, MS, musicians of the same era.

The concert was called Ebony and Ivory because the keys on MS' piano were made of ivory and the wood used was Ebony. The piano was bought for a princely amount of Rs.2000 during the pre-independence years and its great to see that it has been restored and will be housed within an institution that is world famous for its carnatic roots.