My mridangam teacher (guru) told me some weeks ago that his guru would be performing in a concert and invited me to come. Currently there is a 2 week festival at a temple about 1 hour's drive away from Aranmula, and Subhash's guru's performance is a part of this festival. Last night 14 of us went to this concert, and it was such an amazing experience. It was a FREE concert, but the musicians were world class. We were told to go early so that we could get seats because this man is very famous and there would be many people there. So we got great seats at the front and took turns guarding them while we found fruit to eat for the evening meal (memories of WOMAD, reserving space on the fence at the front.)
My guru's guru is named Guru Kaaraikkudi R Mani, and it turns out he is one of India's greatest mridangam players, known world wide. He has schools set up around the world, including one in Melbourne. He has a website (the photo of him below is from his website), and on it I found that he has recently recorded with Paul Simon. He performs all around the world, and is held in great esteem here, obviously.
When his entourage arrived at the venue, my guru was with him, and they went backstage. Later Subhash, my guru, came to get me and took me backstage to meet the great man (I was watched enviously by hundreds of Indian fans as I was taken backstage.) He was a very humble man. His English is very good and he chatted to me for about 10 minutes. He asked where I am from and then told me that he performed at the Adelaide Festival of Arts 6 years ago with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and he told me that he has had a long association with Paul Grabowski. He will be in Melbourne in February and then again in October, so maybe I can meet him there - when I left him he said "Next time in Melbourne"
The concert was stunning. There were 7 musicians on stage (I will include their names in case Uma is reading this, because he might know these musicians). In the centre was the mridangam master himself, and he was in control of everything. To his left were the other 3 percussionists: Sri V Suresh playing khadam (which is a clay pot, hit with fingertips and palms) Another musican (I don't know his name) on ganjira, a small tambourine (it was absolutely amazing and unbelievable the sounds he could make from this very simple instrument). Sri VV Madhusoodhanan played tabla, as well as several other percussion instruments and an electric drum kit. To Kaaraikkudi Mani's right were the melodic instrumentalists: Sri BV Lalasai on flute, Sri UP Raju on mandolin and Sri BV Raghavendra Rao on electric violin.
They played for 3 hours and I was in heaven. I can't express how amazing they were. The only problem was that the sound engineer needs to go to a basic sound engineering course. For almost half of the concert there were terrible screeches from feedback loops, until members of the audience started yelling out advice to the sound engineer, and a crowd of about 10 people formed an irate circle around the mixing desk. The whole performance was halted and a new sound check was done from scratch, which made significant improvements. But anyway, even under those conditions, the brilliance of the musicians was obvious (As I reread my last sentence to myself I chuckled because I've clearly been in India too long, and I'm starting to use flowery language like Indian English)
We were at the front, but in front of us was a roped off area for dignitaries and the press. There were lots of cameras, and guess where the cameras were often aimed - at the white people sitting in the audience. The khadam player was the one who spoke in between pieces, and at the end of the concert he thanked the audience and said that "there are even many foreigners in the audience" (ie those of us from VKV, Aranmula) We'll see if we make the papers again.
Tonight some of us are going back to the same place again, because there is a singing concert (also free). The vocalists are "The Karnatika Brothers" from Chennai (Madras) and they will be accompanied by violin, mridangam, khadam and moursing (Jew's harp)
Guru Kaaraikkudi R Mani, my guru's guru. There were many jokes from my co-students about "guru squared", or "MG2" (Mridangam Guru squared)
