"Hello KB afficionados,

It is great to be back with you after nearly three years! I was delighted when the KB Team invited me to share some of my experiences with all of you on my just concluded tour.

My last column here had been on the eve of my collaboration with some artistes of the BBC Melharmonic - sorry - Philharmonic orchestra! That was my first ever attempt at composing music with my concept of Melharmony and by God's grace, it not only won critical acclaim but was among the five events, out of 2000 from various parts of the world, that were invited for an encore barely a month later. It is quite a coincidence that as I pen this, I just finished another concert with the same artistes in UK. But first things first.

My tour flagged off with a concert at Broadway, New York, for World Music Institute, in a wonderful theatre called Symphony Space. It was a jugalbandi with Flute Shashank and we had excellent support from Satishkumar (mridangam), Vaikkom Gopalakrishnan (ghatam) and Phalgun (Kanjira). It was probably the first jugalbandi between Carnatic artistes that World Music Institute had organized and it was received very well by the near full-house cosmopolitan crowd of nearly 800-900 people, which included several Western musicians and students as well.

My next day's concert in Columbus was a near logistical disaster as my instrument reached Columbus,but not my suitcase, which had all the mikes and my Teflon slide as well! I normally check in both when I fly and in rare instances of delayed baggage, it is always the instrument that is the casualty! Moreover, I am not allowed to carry some of my instrument audio equipment as part of my hand baggage, as they are battery operated devices! But thanks to the enterprise of some of the local organizers (particularly one Mr Shankaran Krishnaswami), we managed to get substitutes for most of my missing equipment and still start the concert almost on time!

I soon flew halfway across the planet for Singapore Fine Arts Society's annual festival, where I was really touched by their excellent hospitality. I have known Dr Kasinathan for aeons, but it was a real pleasure to meet some of the others such as Messers Selvadurai Soma, Dr Sachitanantham, Taroon Kamdar, Ganesh, Bala as also their families. I also had a nice time meeting Sharada, daughter of Mr Gopalakrishnan of the Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi Academy, and her husband Balakrishnan who helped me out during one of my rare shopping sojourns!

The concert in Singapore with Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt was along the lines of our usual jugalbandis - I opened with a Carnatic solo for 30-40 minutes and he followed with a Hindustani one. We played together in the climactic part and on his request, we played Keeravani, which elicited an overwhelming response from the sell out audience that included scores of Chinese populace as well.

I had to get back to US directly, resisting the temptation to fly to India for even a few hours with my parents.

A really funny (though not-so-funny-then) thing happened during my flight to the USA. The passenger next to me, doubtless a fine man with many great qualities, managed to accidentally break my rimless glasses and I was literally caught napping! I woke up and found my glasses in several pieces. So, I myopically groped along the aisles and sought the help of one of the air hostesses who was kind enough to tape it for me, though, for want of any better material, she had to use a white colour opaque tape that crudely covered one of my eyes as well. Needless to say, I was a sight and tried to remedy it as well as I could.

For starters, I was sure that the Immigration Authorities in Detroit would not even grant me my entry if they saw me in this state. So, I removed my glasses and went through immigration and customs. Right from locating the correct suitcase in the baggage claim, everything was nightmarish! Then, I frantically went to an eye care shop in the airport and managed to get a cooler attachment over my glasses which made me look half decent but almost totally blind (as it was a rainy evening). I dreaded landing in Cleveland in this condition as I was sure that the rasikas as also my co-artistes would find it absolutely inexplicable for me to be going around with cooling glasses on a rainy night! I was determined that I'd lock myself up in my room for the night and go out with my spare glasses only the next day but bless me if I did not run into a few of my artistic friends as well as rasikas in the lobby of the hotel even before I checked in! Most of them were genuinely concerned, wondering if I had brought 'Madras Eye' to Cleveland! Anyways, later that night, I made it a point to go down to the lobby for dinner with my spare glasses and things were back on track!

I thoroughly enjoyed almost all the concerts I heard in the festival - most artistes are highly motivated to give their extra bit here since they are performing for not only discerning listeners but also in the presence of several high calibre musicians.

I was looking forward to a joint lecture on Ragam Tanam Pallavis with Prof T. R. Subramaniam on 15 April, but we had to skip that midway due to an unexpected tragedy. We received news that Mr Venkatadri from Buffalo, a great source of strength for this festival, had passed away. This was most shocking, since the last time that my wife Lata saw him was around midnight the previous day and he had been busy serving food for all. Mr Venkatadri was not only a tireless worker but a genuine do-gooder and he was the first to motivate me to publish Shri Tanjavur Shankara Iyer's compositions, in 1994. Even this time around, he was trying to raise funds for another great vocalist of yester years (whose name I am honour-bound not to reveal now). In the best spirit of our culture, Mr Venkatadri attained divine glory, serving Tyagaraja and Carnatic music literally till his very last breath. And the organizers respected his spirit by continuing the festival.

As soon as I came into the hall on 17th morning, I asked my friend Mr V. V. Sundaram if he had any views on what I ought to play that day and he promptly requested for a Ghana raga concert, which I did, including a twin-raga RTP in Bhairavi and Kalyani.

The next concert was a fusion with the well known American jazz band, Natraj, at Boston. I had played with the leader Phil Scarff and his co-artistes in Chennai in January this year, and had enjoyed it. The show at Charles Hotel Boston was sold out and the people sat through nearly two-and-a-half hours of music that included a few Melharmonic compositions of mine such as K. K. Suite and River. Besides, there were other pieces showcasing American, African and Indian music.

Most of you may have read a report of the next concert at Pittsburgh right here in Kutcheribuzz, so I won't bore you with that except to say that SPICMACAY has done a yeoman service in projecting the best of Indian culture in many parts of the globe.

The next two performances were in Washington DC, Shiva Vishnu Temple and Charlotte, the last of which was a whir for me as the day mainly consisted of driving 7 hours from DC, playing for 3 hours and driving another 4 hrs to Atlanta! However, the concert in DC was interesting with Shri T. V. Gopalakrishnan (my esteemed mridangam guru for sometime when I was around six years-old), accompanying me. (Don't ask me if I have ever done justice to that fine instrument!)

The final leg of the tour was in UK and France. The concert at Harewood House in Yorkshire was like a fairy tale. The sprawling property of Lord Harewood, cousin of the Queen is measured in miles, not in square foot or acres. It was great that Kalasangam was able to present our music and dance there. Kalasangam, under the leadership of Dr Geetha Upadhyaya, her ever-supporting husband Dr Shripati ji and her enthusiastic staff headed by Mr Ajit Singh, have placed not only Indian music but the whole of South Asian Arts in a different platform in the UK. Geetha ji also requested me to compose a special piece for world peace through arts and culture and my viruttam in Tamil was choreographed very well by her.

The concluding concert of the tour was in St. Georges Hall, Bradford on 22 May, for Kalasangam's 10th year celebrations. This concert included a fusion with my old friends from the BBC Philharmonic orchestra as also the wonderful guitarist, Martin Kershaw. We presented a new composition of mine, Nattai. However, to me, the highlight of the evening was a magnificent tabla solo by the octogenarian Pt Kishan Maharaj.

Meantime, I also had a workshop in Nantes, France for my good friend Andre Martin, a fine Oboist who gave up his job with the National Orchestra of France to pursue Carnatic music full time. In between all these, my wife Lata and I were able to savour the incredible beauty of Paris for a couple of days with no pressures like phone, email and anything else, a rare occurrence in my life!!

Anyways, I had barely landed in Chennai, when my cousin Chitravina Ganesh came and told me, "I have been waiting for you - I am going to play my non-stop concert tomorrow and break your 24 hour record!" And he did it, in grand style. But that is another story, one which most of you already know I guess!

Melodiously yours,
Chitravina N Ravikiran"

You can write to Ravikiran at E-mail: ravikiranmusic@eth.net