Jayanthi Kumaresh & Aruna Sairam | Simhendramadhyamam
Free to Watch
•
3m 58s
Jayanthi Kumaresh slides and bends around Simhendramadhyamam, a regally mournful Carnatic raga, using the full range of her saraswati veena’s fretboard.
Learn more about the music:
Jayanthi Kumaresh’s saraswati veena is an ancient instrument, named after the Hindu goddess of arts and learning. But her gently electrified version produces a strikingly guitaristic tone, igniting Carnatic classical melodies with sweeping bends. She started playing aged three, and learned under her mother Lalgudi Rajalakshmi, before leaving home aged 13 to study with her aunt Padmavathy Ananthagopalan. She also received instruction from her great-uncle, violinist Lalgudi Jayaraman, and noted veenai S Balachander.
A few years later she became one of the youngest artists to receive an All India Radio ‘A’ grading, earned a doctorate in veena history, and founded the Indian National Orchestra, uniting musicians from India’s classical traditions in a large ensemble. On recent recordings she has experimented with recording seven layers of veena on top of each other, and continues to write for dance and film.
Simhendramadhyamam is a distinctive Carnatic ragam. Its form of SR₂G₂M₂PD₁N₃S is akin to the Western Hungarian Minor scale, and a scale commonly used by gypsy and flamenco musicians in Spain. This intriguing shape is full of symmetry and near-perfectly balanced, meaning that if its pitches across the octave are represented as points in a circle, then their average position (or ‘centre of mass’) is the very centre of the circle. It brings a devotional mood, perhaps mournful and often passionate, capable of powerful cross-cultural communication.
Recorded for Darbar Festival 2016 at London’s Southbank Centre
-Jayanthi Kumaresh (saraswati veena)
-Aruna Sairam (vocal)
-Jyotsna Srikanth (violin)
-Nevyelli Venkatesh (mridangam)
-Ghatam Karthick (ghatam)
-Kiruthika Nadarajah (tanpura)
-Mithila Sarma (tanpura)
Subscribe to the Darbar Player to access the full, uncut performance.
Up Next in Free to Watch
-
Ustad Shahid Parvez | Romance of Raag...
“My involvement in music is so much that I do not think of anything else...I do not believe I can live a better life.” (Shahid Parvez).
Learn more about the music:
Shahid Parvez Khan is totally dedicated to the sitar, upholding the illustrious traditions of his ancestors while expanding the ins... -
Arshad Khan | Esraj | Raag Bhairavi
Arshad Khan is a rare modern exponent of the esraj, a bowed instrument from Bengal which can mimic the cry of the human voice with startling accuracy.
Learn more about the music:
Arshad Khan is a leading exponent of the esraj, a rare bowed-fretted instrument from Bengal, long associated with Si...
-
Anupama Bhagwat | Royal Raag Shahana
“So exhilarating has been the beauty of my journey in the realms of music, that the destination is no longer important” (Anupama Bhagwat)
Learn more about the music:
Anupama Bhagwat’s sitar style combines the best elements of the Imdadkhani gharana - structured alap playing, rapid taans, and a d...