Congrats Uncle for Kalaimamani award.

While 22nd Feb'09 was a day of celebrations as ARR uncle (Some one in Youtube link was cursing em for calling him as uncle- but i think for the love i have on him i can do so) got the Oscar 24th Feb'09 is even more a great day as i got the news of my own uncle- my amma's brother Embar S. Kannan uncle getting the Kalaimamani Award from Tamil Nadu Government. This is indeed a great joy and i my hearty congrats to Embar Kannan uncle. I am sure all my well wishers will also congratulate him for this achievement.

A good 10 days of concerts and great news of Oscars.

Siva Vishu Tempel - Bandikavanoor

It was a great time performing concerts from the 12th till 23rd Feb almost one every alternate days. While each concert is a exciting experience the ones on the 18th and 23rd Feb'09 were really great being public concerts. I had a great trip to the foot hill of Kumaran Kundram in Chrompet and i am sure i will be visiting the temple in the near future. The full house audience at the concert for Narendra Cultural Academy gave our team a great boost and we did perform a good concert that day. On 23rd it was at a temple in Bandikavanoor Village around 30 kms from Chennai on the Periyapalathaman temple road. It was a nice drive we had and the temple is so good every one should surely make a trip and get the blessings of all the deity's who are really shaanthasoroobam in nature. It is a Shiva Vishnu Temple and i have given the link here for all to see the photos taken during this visit. The children were so excited to be on our cameras. When i visit next time i should take few copies of their picture and hand it over to them!

I also had Prapancham Shailendran as enhancing artist on lead Guitar for two concerts and it was very interesting to note that he is also playing guitar with no formal training on same. He is son of the great Mrudhangam vidwan Sri Prapancham Ravindran who was with us at the Embar Temple performance. Shailendran is also a good mrudhangam artist and he did join us for a concert on same during this hectic week.

Congrats SDM team & Sri AR Rahman in particular for the Oscars.


My gift to ARR uncle is a garland of his own songs i presented as a medley on the 14th Feb'09 while doing prayers for thsi great acheivement of Oscar Awards.

A wonderful time with Special Children today 14th Feb'09

Thanks to Ram anna of Sri A R Rahman's yahoo fan's group, i got a call yesterday night to perform today - 14th Feb'09 at a NGO school in Anna Nagar. I was happy to have been there to see lot of special children performing dance, singing, Yoga and a skit also. I also performed ARR uncle's songs for about 20 mts and i think every one liked it. It was a nice morning with the oppurtnity to be with these special kids. I performed a medley of ARR uncle's songs namely - Kadhal Rojave, Nilakaigiradhu, Musthafa and Jai Ho as my appa asked every one to pray for the Oscar award to be bestowed on ARR uncle.

Sri Embar Swamy's Temple Concert at Madhuramangalam - 6th Feb'09

It was a great oppurtunity for me to perform at Madhuramangalam Sri Embar's Temple with my uncle Embar Kannan on violin and Prapancham Ravindran uncle on the Mrudhangam. After writing the exam in the morning left to Madhuramangalam in the afternoon and performed a 30 mts concert inside the temple premises. Later performed a 1 hour concert at the new Math building. It was so nice to see all the rituals in the temple and again here we had the problem of power fluctuation and this time both my keyboard adaptor and Monitor's transformers got burnt. It is indeed a great lesson learnt. Inspite of telling the electrician we got in to this trouble and again my uncle did couple of solo numbers to finish the concert. A great oppurtunity and a good concert trip of 3 days with my uncle from the 4th to the 6th Feb'09 covering Tirunelveli, Vellore and Madhuramangalam. Looking forward to many more!

Trip to Vellore from Tirunelveli on the 4th Fe'09 night.

We could not make it to other temples and had just time to go take rest for half hour and then started preparing for the concert in the evening at Tirunelveli. It was one of the concerts i will not forget for a long time as i had a God mother saint coming and blessing the couple and us.

The other reason is that due to power fluctuation the transformer in the adaptor of my keyboard got burnt and it was by miracle appa got out to the town and got it repaired. In the meanwhile my uncle Embar Kannan presented his solo numbers for which i played Kanjeera. I also tried a number on his silent violin and later with the alternate keyboard appa had arranged played Nagumomu. In the mean time appa brought the adopter in condition and we continued the concert. When we narrated all this to the organisers they were happy that all went well with no disturbance to the receptions function. Its all God's grace only.

on 4th Feb'09 we took a Tempo Traveler and traveled all night to Vellore and on reaching around 1145 AM had our lunch and went to take rest. The concert in the evening went well with Sridhar anna on drums and Sasi uncle on Bass Guitar (He is brother-in-law of Great Maestro Ilayaraja sir) joining us from Chennai. Drove down to Chennai in the night itself as i had exam to be attended the next day 6th Feb'09, morning at 8.

My trip to Tirunelveli, Vellore and Sriperumbudhur 4-6 Feb'09

It has been long time i have travelled with appa, amma, my guru thatha and uncle and this was a great opportunity. We all left Chennai ydy 3rd Feb'09 evenng in a call taxi amb which gave all sorts of sound except the engine's sound and still managed to reach Station in time. Did regret not seeing the match but thanks to Kalyan uncle, we were updated almost ball by ball over the phone. We had a comfortable journey to Tirunelveli on arrival were received and take to a hotel tdy morning.

After breakfast, as advised by our house owner uncle, we proceeded to "Kurukuthurai" which was really unbelievable with water flowing with good current. It has been long time we have enjoyed this kind of an environment and we were all in water for almost 2 hours and just returned and had lunch. Had dharshan of Balamurugan temple and do not know if we can make it to other temples. We have the concert in the evening after which we are going to Vellore. Looking forward to a good concert and trip to Vellore. Bye for now (1445) Photos will be upload later.

Celebrations on my Birthday at Guruvayur

Firstly i would like to thank all my well wishers who ahve sent me Birthday greetings a big thank you!. All your wishes are so dear to me and i value them very much.

It was a great Birthday gift for me from Lord Guruvayoorappa with dharshan at Guruvayoor and a good concert the same evening at Trichur for a private function. We the team of Venkat anna on Violin, Swaminathan anna on Mrudhangam, Hariharasubramanian anna on Ghatam & Morsing and appa on thalam enjoyed the concert with 3 new attempts of Swathi Thirunal's composition namely a varnam - ragam Mayamalavagowla, Bhogendra Sayinam, a krithi in Kunthalavaralai and Pankacha Lochana in Kalyani.

There was a list of krithis as audience choice which came in as we entered the hall and so changed the concert structure to fit in as many numbers as possible. I was more happy as amma also joined this trip and all of just crashed as soon as we entered our coach in the train on return. Thanks to almighty for having made this trip successful as we, i.e. amma at Valasarawakkam and myself at RA Puram, managed to finish our respective private concerts and rush and catch the train in time on the 31st Jan'09 to got to Trichur. There was also another surprise gift from the print media i.e. a photograph of my amma in Vadapalani times as she is giving a certificate to Mstr. harath a keybaord artiste the review can be read in the link :

http://www.vadapalanitimes.com/2009/01/30/with-a-touch-of-melody/

Looking forward to the trip to Thirunelveli, Vellore and Sriperumbudhur and this time i will be joined my appa, amma, Embar Kannan mama and my thatha for this trip. Details of Photos are as under:

1. Amma in Vadapalani times 2. concert on 31st Jan'09 3. Concert on 31st Jan'09 4. In front of Guruvayur Temple 5. Concert at Trichur 6. Concert at Trichur on 1st Feb'09 - my birthday.