MadRasana’s Tinge series explores the music-colour connect
The Hindu
The festival featured compositions and ragas based on colours and their meanings
When a Carnatic concert series is themed on colours, what you experience is a kaleidoscope of ragas and kritis. MadRasana’s Tinge festival, streamed between October 27 and 31, featured the works of an array of composers — from the Sangam era to the Trinity to Bharati. The theme was conceptualised by MadRasana’s Mahesh Venkateswaran along with architect, lyricist and storyteller Vinay Varanasi. The five pallavis based on five colours and presented by five artistes were written by Vinay.
The series began with the colour red and the compositions chosen brought out the various aspects of the colour and the emotions associated with it. The artiste was S. Adithyanarayanan, who was accompanied by Vittal Rangan on the violin and Akshay Ram on the mridangam. The Srividya upasana speaks of the primordial guru with three feet in hues of red — raktha shukla misra — red, white and a mix of both. Dikshitar’s ‘Sri Guruguhamurte’ in Udayaravichandrika perfectly fitted this concept with the raga’s name also representing the colour of the rising sun and the moon. The dhyana shloka from Subramanya Kavacham that preceded it begins with ‘Sindhuraruna kantim’ and merged well with the kriti.
Then came the composition ‘Japakusuma’ (red flower) written by Vinay and tuned by Adithyanarayanan in Kalyani. The kriti speaks of goddess Kamakshi offering the flower to Shiva, who performs the cosmic dance during twilight wearing a garland of japakusuma that emanates a vibrant red hue. .