A concert to bring alive ancient poetry through music

Singers and siblings — Krithika Sreenivasan and Deepika Sreenivasan — join hands for a concert that is aimed at bringing alive Kannada poetry through music. Called the encyclopedic project Kannada Kavya Kamanabillu, powered by their grandfather, poet and critic Dr CN Ramachandran, says Krithika. “We will be presenting Kannada poetry from various time periods — hale Kannada kavya (classical poetry), madhya kaalina kavya (medieval poetry) and navya (modern poetry) — and bringing them alive with Carnatic classical music.”

Krithika says the concert will be rendered in various compositional formats of carnatic classical music such as varna, raga, tana, pallavi, and tillana.

The three time periods of Kannada poetry are important and each work reveals the difference in the approach and the perspective of the writer/composer to the language itself, Krithika says.

“My sister and I took to music at the age of four,” says Krithika. “Coming from a musical and literary background helped and music is ingrained in our hearts. It has become an integral part of our lives. We never felt pressurised by any concert nor did we ever take a sabbatical from music for studies. Everything happened concurrently, with music.”

Krithika believes this encyclopaedic concert is their way of telling people that these poems need not be limited to academia or textbooks, but can be brought alive in the form of music.

Krithika will be joined by her sister, Deepika (on mridanga), Vishwajit Mattur (violin) and Bhagyalakshmi M Krishna (morsing).

The concert is on November 11, 5pm at Gayana Samaja, Basavanagudi. It is open to all.