‘Analyzing’ the Dec Season concert schedules of Sanjay and T.M.Krishna almost a month back and arriving at the final list of concerts that I should try to attend, with Sanjay’s concerts taking the first preference and the proximity of the concert venues being the other deciding factor; waiting for the entire or almost-the-entire list of concerts happening during the season to be updated in Ram’s blog and then, preparing the final list of concerts/lec-dems that I should try to attend, I couldn’t wait to start going for concerts after concerts the whole of this month! And now, the December Season has finally begun! Yay! 🙂

Checking ‘The Hindu’ first thing every morning to check the schedule of the concerts for the day once again, sabha-hopping, listening to hours and hours of Sanjay’s and TMK’s singing, a brilliant concert of TMK making it tough to choose between Sanjay’s and his concert when both their concerts are there on the same day and at the same time, listening to musicians whom I have not heard before, the less-crowded morning and afternoon concerts, going to sabhas even in T.Nagar unmindful of the traffic, struggling to park my two-wheeler on the platforms outside Music Academy on days when a popular musician’s concerts happen, some raagam which might be part of a majority of concerts that I attend (I am hoping it’s not Todi this year 😉 ), some raagam which might become my favourite at the end of the Season after hearing an exceptional performance of it by some musician, loads of RTPs – all that and more! This is what the December Season is, to me. This is one month when Carnatic music takes precedence over everything else.

Yesterday was TMK’s first concert of the Season and I managed to go for it and on the very first day itself, I also ended up doing sabha-hopping, or should I say sabha-walking since, thanks to the heavy rains making my Scooty not get started, I walked all the way from Narada Gana Sabha to Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan for attending M.S.Gopalakrishnan’s concert right after TMK’s? 😉

If things go as per my plans, apart from Sanjay’s and T.M.Krishna’s concerts, I will try to go for at least one concert of Mandolin Srinivas (most probably the one at Music Academy), Ramani, Kanyakumari, Sowmya, Bombay Jayashri (it has been a long time since I heard her and there is no Sanjay’s or TMK’s concert on the day of her concert at Music Academy), Sikkil Gurucharan, Saketaraman, Amritha Murali, Akkarai Sisters, Sandeep Narayan, Vijayagopal, Ram and a few others and also some lec-dems. I don’t see Guitar Prasanna’s name in any of the Sabha’s schedules and I don’t see his concert schedule in his MySpace page as well. 🙁 Is he not performing during the Season this year??

I have been quite irregular in writing about the concerts here. But, from now on, I want to post about all the concerts that I go for. Needless to say, my posts will, of course, be the usual I-liked-this-alapana-or-song or I-didn’t-like-the-rendition-of-some-song! With this month going to be a hectic one, I hope I do find time to write about all the concerts.

Friday is when I will next be going for a concert and it is Sanjay’s concert at Margazhi Mahotsavam. I am excited! 😉 Are you coming for that concert? Whose concerts are you planning to attend this Season?