The beauty of Sri Sanjay Subrahmanyam's music

It was five years ago when Suresh anna told me about Sri Sanjay Subrahmanyam. He pointed out that this singer of Carnatic music was qualified as a Chartered Accountant and had been a Ranji Trophy cricket player. In 2007, my teacher said that her son was an upcoming concert musician and a disciple of Sri Sanjay. I got my first chance to attend his concert in 2008 in Los Angeles. He bowled me over with his lilting voice and heartfelt, detailed renditions. I felt that his was a vibrant and power-packed concert. I purchased two of his CDs and listened to them over and over again. I learnt to like Malayamarutham and Madhyamavathy listening to his alapanas. He really enjoys his singing on stage. He also has a good sense of humour and an unassuming personality. But he takes music very seriously and has an infectious passion for it. I was lucky to get his autograph during his concert in 2009. The songlist for the concert is at http://simala.net/pastevents/2009Events/october24/sanjay-subramanyam-october24.html .Here is my short review of his 2009 SIMA concert:

After a powerpacked concert last year, Sanjay gave us more bhavam and detailed singing this time. He started with an Ata thala varnam Neevanti deivamu (Neelambari) followed by 'Vande sada Padmanabham'. He sang beautiful swarams. The next krithi in Reethigowla was good. 'Saravana bhava guhane' in Madhyamavathi was excellent. The RTP started in my favourite ragam Abheri. For the pallavi, he used a ragamaalika. The line was 'Vellai thamarai poovil iruppaal.' I particularly liked the way he interspersed the words with swarams like ' Vellai Thamarai Poovil Iruppaal.' It sounded very good. It must be difficult because I have not heard a lot of this type of swaram-singing. The young violinist got a couple of 'sabash'es from Sanjay for his keen following of the singer's swarams. He then switched to Tamil and sang in Kalyani, Sahana, Mohanam etc. He switched from Bhakti rasam and sang 'Oho kaalame' about time. Another good one was 'Thunbam nergayil' in Desh. Subrahmanya Bharathi's 'Ninnaye Rathi endru' sounded pleasantly different from the film-version I am used to hearing. We could glimpse Sanjay's sense of humour when he sang 'nee nillaadu ooduvai' (about time) just when a playful boy was rushing onto a first row seat; he also pointed to Mr.Narayan while singing 'Narayananai thudi maname.' On the whole, a very enjoyable concert.