It was a great day in my life as i had oppurtunity to see a great Youth ICON of India Sri A R Rahman and that too so close to take photos and also autograph. My sincere thaks to Pyarilal uncle, owner of www.carnaticsangeetham.com who has taken some great pictures and it will be a treasure to me.

You can see Sri ARR looking at my eyes and also so keen to hear what i say. I was so happy when he told me that he knows my amma, uncle and grandfather and also enquired about all of them. A great feeling indeed when some body at his level remembers us! Also was lucky to get the blessings of Sri Vinayakaram uncle, The First Indian Gramme Winner.

The second row pictures is of the performance of teh album which was released and myself and appa with Sri Neelkamal Maheshwari www.neelkamalsautographs.com a different personality who has the habit of collecting autographs on ones photo's. Pls do visit this link to see his work from Sri Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and many more.

The third row is Sri Gaanesh & family with friends, a family very close to Sri Ganesh Kumaresh uncles and incidentally like me and my Carnatic on keyboard music too. They congratulated me on my POGO achievement and i thought it to be my honour to have a photograph with them. The next is two personalities of varied interest- one a autograph hunter and the other - a man with great hunger to make great people's websites, Sri Pyarilal.

It was a pleasant concert at Sri Thyagaraja Sangeetha Vidwath Samajam for a duration of 2 hours. I had a great satisfaction of playing here in this place and felt as though i have been recognised by St. Thyagaraja himself personally. I was also very happy the way Krishnaswamy uncle ( a leading violin artist) appreciated the music produced by the instrument.

There was a little cat going here and there during the concert and i was happy noticing it. Also bunches of mosquitoes was always giving srtuhi in our ears, however the coil burnt was effective to keep them away. I had a surprise two foreign audience also in this concert and was happy to be appericiated by them and all the elderly people who had come. Special thanks to Ranjani aunty, Murali uncle and his father & also to Ananthakrishnan anna for coming for the concert.

A video link of the niraval performed during the concert

http://www.aapkavideo.com/desi-video/jsp/tVideo.jsp?v=C673L9&c=0&ss=o

The concert on the 2nd Feb'07 - at the Harbour for the special voyage of "Gotheberg" a Sweedish Ship /yacht which has called on Chennai Port. I had the oppurtunity to perform with Paul Jacob uncle on Bass Guitar, Mr Donnan Murry on lead Guitar and Balu uncle on mrudhangam. It was a 90 mts show of fusion music where i was performing pure classical songs on carnatic for which Paul and Donan uncles gave their support in thier own style to fuse.It was indeed a great seperience to go and see a ship and to know some details. I look forward to sailing in this may be in near future!!

I was really worried about celebrating my birthday with my friends but it so happend that 1st Feb (my birthday) was celebrated by me cutting cake in the stage of the wedding concert along with my friends who are very older than myself but who care for my developments. I had immense satisfaction spending this evening with them.

I was surprised that few of the visitors for the wedding also came to the stage and wished me with gifts. A real surprise. Appa has told me that we all will be going for a movie during the week end i.e. 3rd or 4th Feb'07. The bridegroom was all praise for our team's performance. The food was also good and it became my birthday dinner.

It was a new experience to perform a concert along with Thavil performed by Sri Ranganatha Battachari for a private concert at Velacheri. The hall was small and the concert was arranged by Thirumalai uncle who is distantly related to my mother's side of the family. It was a concert where i performed classical, devotional and film music apart from few of my own compositions.

Sri Ranganatha Battachari a proffessional Bhattachari handled and played the thavil very well. While for the first song it was little louder from the next one the mike man udjusted and also appa requested uncle to play a little softly.

Being my star (sadhayam) birthday I was blessed to perform a concert at NSTSS on the 22nd Jan’07. It was one of the largely attended audience of my concerts and I was happy that almost the entire hall was full from the beginning to the end. This also adds up to my responsibility as I am now clearly aware that people have some expectations and I need to keep up, to be able to make them come for my concerts again and again.

The audio was of great quality and special thanks to Deepan Chakravarthi anna of Karthik audio for the same. Prof Sundararajan during his speech praised me a lot and I do not know whether I am eligible for all those lavish praise. Sri Vaidyanathan of Krishna Sweets was honoured during the felicitation.

Special thanks to Ravishankar anna (Mrudhangam artiste and also a good singer) and his mother, Ramanathan uncle & the office bearers of this forum for having made it possible for me to perform here.

Coimbatore concert for GRG College for Eductation

A great trip once again to Coimbatore, thanks to Gopi Mama. This time for GRG College founder's day celebration. I stayed at AARVEE Hotels and it was indeed a very good. But i could not enjoy the stay as it was just for only hours as i had to leave hotel by 230 to proceed to college for the concert at 430pm.

As usual it was a great breakfast at Gopimama's house and enjoyed being with his sister and also Gurucharan uncle and Charsow Suresh uncle. I do not remeber the other uncle who was to play Piano with Gurucharan uncle in a different venue. This uncel praised me a lot saying that he was hearing very nice things about me and also heard my performance.

Mrs Devarajan the Dean of the college had made wonderful arrangements and also gave me a beautiful watch as gift to me along withmy favorate chocalates. ( I am surprised how she knew this). All of teh volunteeres were very courtious and we had another pleasant trip to Kovai. The audience of students and volunteers cheered me for every song and hope they all enjoyed the show.

What can i say about Sundhari aunty and Chander uncle? They came for the concert and gave a dinner feast to us in the night. I just developed fever and could not enjoy same but all the rest enjoyed the dinner and it was very moving. They offered me all comforts and i think that kind of warmth made sure i was alright in the next morning.

Special thanks to Sri Thottarayaswamy who has talked about me in his blog and the link is as follows: http://pagadaipost.blogspot.com/2007/01/blog-post_19.html

Thank you uncle and i hope i live up to your expectations.

This concert at Westmambalam on the 21st Jan07 for a wedding i understand is my 325th stage. A different experience as i was playing with Sri Manian my school konnakol master who performed with me on mrudhangam along with Tabla rajagopal uncle and S P Ananthapadmanabha uncle on violin.

As both carnatic and some film songs were requested i used both my Yamaha 640 for rhythm and Korg PRO for melody. It was a massive crowd and one child may be around 9 years was always playing in fornt of the stage with a baloon in his hands. I just wanted to take it and play with it but i was on stage. The food was excellent and so was the ice cream. I was moved by the shawl and also an excellent gift given by Mr/s Seetharaman.

You can see the two people at teh back on the first photo and on the left is Ramesh Uncle who is one of the main reason for my success as he is the owner of S K Audio who keeps PA (audio)system for almost all my private concerts in Chennai. A Big thank you for him and i thought i can show his face to you all.

10th Jan'07 was indeed a greatday for me as i was performing for a full fledged audience from abroad - the foriegn delagates of ICA'07 meet. Doubly happy because i was also having my cousin brother on stage with me on Kanjeera teaming up for the first time.

Krishnan Parthasarathy, my athai's son, is from Melbourne - Australia and is a sishya of Sri Ravichandra, from the guruparampara of Guruji Sri Karaikudi Mani Iyer. I give below a audio link and hop you all like it. Regret for some poor quality of audio.

http://tinyurl.com/ymdgdj

I did not expect a good crowd here as I knew it was after a long holiday and also the slot of 4 – 6pm. However there was a decent crowd and I could see lot of repeat audience which was really encouraging. Sagayam uncle as usual did a great sahayam (help) with his good handling of PA system and the concert went very well. I am sure all the artists on stage also liked the presentation. Srinivasan uncle expressed his happiness on the performance and i hope to come back here for the main slot during Dec’07.

My concert was after Smt Padma Krishnan’s (distantly related to me as my grand mother) concert. I was hearing her for the first time and it was indeed great. The Krithi Karpuram narumo was brilliant and this has inspired me to learn this song.

For the first time I was teaming up with Anayampatti Venkatasubramanim on the violin and I was very comfortable with him and so was with Sri Sivaramakrishnan on Ghatam. Trivandrum balaji anna was his usual best & we had good time exchanging few jokes on stage with in ourselves on sign language. The PA System was good and I had few foreigners as audience here too.

A happy way to start this New Year – 2007

I was indeed very happy to be at the dias for a performance particularly along with my uncle Embar S Kannan. It was a blessing in all ways as I was performing with a team of artists who had just got the intimation that all the three of them had won “Best Accompanists Award” for respective categories from The Music Academy for their performance during Dec’06 season.

My uncle, Poongulam anna and Gopalakrishnan anna gave great encouragement and I was very comfortable and cool performing the first concert for the year – blessed to perform in a temple on the first day of a new year. Many from the audience gave be gifts in cash. The high light was the gift given by Balu uncle with a geared Cycle to me and a great lunch for all of us at his house. I was so happy that day as I always wanted this cycle to be bought and I got it as a surprise gift from Balu uncle & family for having won the POGO Award. Thank you Balu uncle.

I totally enjoyed the concert with the team and I think we gave a good 2 hours of music to the large audience who had gathered for the concert. The PA System by Mr Ramesh of Kannan Audios was perfect. The reason is, he knows Carnatic music and I could see him sing along for most part of the concert. It is indeed a great boon to have somebody to handle the PA system as he takes care at its best output for the audience which is most important in a concert. It was a indeed a large crowd as you could see in the photos.

I also enjoyed the Dharshan of Lord Anjeneya (my favorite God) & the puliyodharai prasadham. It was indeed a blessing to perform here for this temple on a Saturday - Vaikunda Ekkadesi day and also the last of my concert day in 2006.

My best ever New Year gift received from my rasika, a portrait of my self from 11 year friend for this New Year. Thank you and hope i keep up your hopes.

Pls visit the link to see an article on myself in The Hindu dated 31 December 2006

Article in The Hindu

A great day for me and family as my uncle Embar S Kannan performed a solo concert in the prime slot for Kalarasana at Rani Seethai Hall. I understand due to some unforeseen circumstances Sowmya akka could not sing today at this slot and as my mama was suppose to accompany her Sri Srinivasan suggested mama to play a solo in the same slot and it was indeed a great time we had listerning to mama's concert.

ESK mama started off with Nalinakanthi varnam of Lalgudi sir's and tehn played Srimahaganapathim in Gowla set to misra chaappu. The best was the krithi on Nagabhushani and the RTP on Natakurinchi with the phrase "Naatai kurinchi enbar sirandha engaladhu". He played three ragams during alapana adn thanam presentation flowing so beautifully from one to the other namely Naataikurinchi, Naatai and Kurinchi. He then gave a presentation of kalpanaswaram also in the same order and rounded off with korvai with the same order. It was indeeed facinating for me to ehar a great piece.

For this RTP Neyveli Narayanan uncle played Kanda nadai on mrudhangam, Anirudh anna Thisra nadai on Kanjeera and Arunkumar anna - Misra nadai on rhythm pad during the thani. Mama ended off the concert with Lalgudi sir's Desh thillana and the team got a standing appaluse from the audience present.

Whoever came there for attending Sowmya akka's, I am sure would second me in the opinion of having attended a great Violin solo concert by Embar S Kannan - my uncle.

It was indeed one of the good concerts of Ghatam Karthick uncle's heArtbeat concerts i have attended today 28th December, 2006 at Rani Seethai hall for Kalarasana.

The photo is of the release of their cd titled "Thana Dhirana Jam" by Sri Sujatha - Journalist.

If you had missed this team's concert this season do try and attend tmrw morning at Chitrakulam Panjamugaanjeneyar sannadhi at 9am or on the 2nd January'07 at Parthasarathy Sabha at 10am.

It was indeed a hectic 3 days of concert activity 2 each on the 22nd & 23rd and one on the 24th Dec'06. The highlight is the gift i got from violin Villiwakkam Raghuraman uncle who has presented me with a cute looking (effective) sony mpe recorder for getting the POGO Award. Grest gesture and i have already been using it from teh 22nd concert itself.

The other thing is the appreciation i received from many for rendering the navagraha krithi Suryamoorthey at MFAC on the 24th Dec'06 & Balu uncle in particular. I was very happy to see him nodding his head in the positive sign and showing thumps up sign before he eleft the hall after hearing he krithi.

I am also enjoying the food at many sabhas along with good concert and the pcik of the food is Tiffin - Narada Gana Sabha and meals Music Academy. As far as music i liked every ones rendention. I had attended three of my mentor - guru Shri Mandolin Shrinivasji's and coup[le of Guru Kanyakumari madam till date apart from others like Sudha aunty's, Aruna Sairam aunty's Guitar Prassanna uncle's, Saranathan mama's Ravikiran sir's,Sanjay Subramaniam sir's etc.

I also had the oppurtunity to take a photo with my guru- mentor Shri Mandolin Shrinivas alongwith MFAV secy. Venkatraman mama after his concert on the 25th Dec'06. I sincerely thank Sri Pyarilal of www.carnaticsangeetham.com for this photo.

I had been to Thiruvannamalai on 24th after the concert with appa, amma, Hari uncle and his mother. They did girivalam and i stayed in a room and was watching tv. We had good dharshan and went to Ramanashram next day & had great time over there. Above are the pictures at the ashram with the room of Maharishi and peacock.

Shall post some interesting picutres on the season soon.

I was happy to come back to Sastry Hall for another performance, this time for Sri Kapali Fine Arts on the 19th Dec'06. I was al little tired after coming straight from school to perform but recooped in time. How ever the audio was little disturbing as it was the normal amp which was there instead of a mixer.

I enjoyed the photo session by an uncle from Kutcheri Buzz who took many photos of our concert. Hope tos ee it in their news soon.

I was treated for my good performacne (i believe so) by Sri Siva Sankaran, a leading advocate who took all my family members and my ammamma & another aunty to Mylapore Club & made us eat well. He has also promised me to join in the Tennis and Cricket coaching if i liked. I have told him that i will get back to him after the season.