Carnatica's Rasika Forum

The International Foundation for Carnatic Music takes great pleasure in inviting all of you to the release of the Audio CD of the Kamakshi Navavarana krtis of Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi, rendered by Chitravina N Ravikiran's ensemble, Vintage Virtuosos, at the Hamsadhwani Annual Festival in Chennai on Feb 28, 2009. Shri Y Prabhu, Secretary, Sri Krishna Gana Sabha will release the albums and Vidwan Shri Neyveli Santanagopalan will receive the first copy.

Venkata Kavi is believed to have been initiated into Srividya worship by none other than Bhaskara Raya and therefore it is hardly surprising that these creations (in high quality Sanskrit), are a treasure trove of information on Srividya and Srichakra and reveal the composer’s intimate knowledge of the Lalitopakhyana, Lalita Sahasranama and Tantra Shastra. They abound in avarana details such as the names of the chakra, mudra devata, manovritti as also the group of Shakti-s and yogini-s. Apart from the main nine songs for the nine nights, the composer has composed an invocatory Vinayaka stuti, a dhyana stuti and a phala stuti too.


Soulful melody and intricate rhythm: The composer has skillfully employed rare ragas like Deshakshi and Balahamsa as also sublimely charming ragas like Anandabhairavi, Nadanamakriya and Punnagavarali. The 6th avaranam, Sadananda mayi is one of the most majestic and brilliant pieces ever composed in Hindolam. In the krtis in Kalyani and Shuddhasaveri, the composer has innovatively inserted madhyamakalas in between the pallavi as opposed to the usual practice of most composers, who use it at the end of a section. Such techniques give a refreshingly distinctive touch to Venkata Kavi’s compositions. Venkata Kavi has revealed proof of his skills in rhythm in talas like the 9-unit Khanda Triputa, the 17-unit Khanda Dhruvam and the 20-unit Sankeerna Mathyam.


Artistes: The artistes featured include Lata Ganapathy, Savita Narasimhan, Salem Gayathri, Bhargavi Balasubramanian, Anahita Ravindran, Ashwin Sridhar (voices), Akkarai Shubhalakshmi and Sornalata (violin), P Ganesh (chitravina), Revathy Krishna (Veena), A S Ranganathan and R Sankaranarayanan (mrdangam) and N Guruprasad and S V Ramani (ghatam).

Some of the songs in this production have been re-mixed from IFCM's earlier production "Songs of the Nine Nights"

For copies of the CD, please email carnaticworld@yahoo.com