Aathreyee Krishnaa’s concert shone with rare kritis

Aathreyee’s raga alapanas had an emotive appeal. She performed at Mudhra’s 30th annual festival in 2024, with V.V .Srinivasa Rao on the violin, M.S. Varadan on the mridangam and M. Gururaj on the morsing.
| Photo Credit: Courtesy: Mudhra

Athreyee Krishnaa is endowed with a melodic voice that easily traverses across octaves. She is the winner of Mudhra’s Kutcheri Competition.

Hailing from a musical family, this young vocalist from Karkala in Udupi district is now training under vidwan R.K. Shriramkumar and vidushi Amritha Murali. Athreyee’s extensive Thodi had an emotive appeal. The chosen kriti was Tyagaraja’s ‘Kaddanuvaariki kaddu’. Neraval and swaras were at ‘Baddu tappaka bhajiyince’ in the charanam.The swara korvais that she sang showed her control over laya.

The other raga that she took up for detailed alapana was Kalyani, in which she rendered Syama Sastri’s ‘Thalli ninnunera’ (Misra Chapu). Athreyee took up niraval at the third charanam ‘Syamakrishna paripalini’.

Athreyee commenced the evening concert with a Viruttham in Sankarabharanam, followed by ‘Meru samana’ (Mayamalavagowla) by Saint Tyagaraja with engaging kalpanaswaras at the pallavi. The saint’s Kannadagowla piece ‘Orajupu juchedi nyayama’ was rendered crisply. Another Tyagaraja kriti that she sang was ‘Nenarunchinanu’ in Malavi with a lovely chittaswaram.

Sublime rendition

The singer next presented ‘Enneramum unthan sannidhiyile’, a masterpiece by Gopalakrishna Bharathi in an appropriate vilamba kala. She conveyed the beauty of Devagandhari. ‘Parulanna mata’, the Jawali in Kapi (Rupakam) of Dharmapuri Subbarayar was sublime.

Athreyee wound up the concert with ‘Venkatesa bedi kombe’ by Purandaradasa in a Ragamalika consisting of Khamas, Hamir Kalyani and Kapi in tisra nadai and ‘Ramanai tharuvaai’ (Sindhu Bhairavi) of Arunachala Kavi.

Mudhra makes it a point to arrange senior accompanists for the winner. Veteran V.V .Srinivasa Rao on the violin offered excellent support to the young artiste, especially in his elaboration of Kalyani and Thodi as well as his responses to the various swaraprastharas. On the percussion, the contribution of senior vidwans such as M.S. Varadan (mridangam) and M. Gururaj (morsing) enlivened the recital.