Guruvaibhavam 2022

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Guruvaibhavam 2022, our second Guruvaibhavam event in the series, focussed on Shyama Shastri, one of the Trinities in Carnatic music.

25 talented singers from various age groups participated from various states across India. Our participants performed 11 Shyama Shastri kritis covering varied ragas and talas. They were accompanied by Sri Koduntharapully Subbaraman on Violin and Sri Rajagopal Ramamoorthy on Mridangam.

The program was inaugurated by our chief guest Sri. Ajith Namboothiri, a talented carnatic musician and performer having in depth knowledge of the field.

Our anchors Ms Aishwarya P L and Smt Savitha Sreenivasan took us through the journey describing each Kriti origin, meaning, how it was created, ragas, talas, making the experience for our audience so blissful and complete.

The program was concluded with the felicitation ceremony of maithree members, our guru and momentos to our participants.

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Over the years, Shyama Shastri became a well-known and respected musician, scholar and a composer. He was quite admired and respected by Tyagaraja and it appears that the two of them often held scholarly and lengthy discussions on their latest compositions.

He frequently accompanied his father to the temple. Gradually his faith in the Goddess grew. Shyama Shastri, like his father was the archaka (priest) in the Bangaru Kamakshi Temple in Tanjore. He was a very pious and genuine devotee of Goddess Kamakshi. He is believed to have lost consciousness of the outside world on several occasions as he prayed to the Goddess. On such occasions, he would sing his kriti-s extemporaneously. 

Although Śyāma Śastri did not compose as many kritis as his two prolific contemporaries, his compositions are still well known due to the literary, melodic and rhythmic proficiency observed in them. It is said that he composed about three hundred pieces in all. 

He did not have many disciples to propagate his compositions, nor was the printing press widely accessible during his time. More importantly, the scholarly nature of his compositions made them more appealing to the learned than to the lay. Additionally, they feature a more formal form of Telugu which borrows heavily from Sanskrit. In contrast, Tyagaraja composes in generally more colloquial dialect of Telugu. There are also a number of krithis in Tamil attributed to him. Most of his compositions propitiate the Goddess Kamakshi. 

He composed kritis, varṇa(s) and svarajati(s) with the ankita or mudra (signature) Śyāma Krishna. He was probably the first to compose in a new form of the svarajati musical genre, where the compositions could be rendered solely in a singing or instrumental manner. Prior to this, the svarajati was primarily a dance form, and was close in structure to the dance Varṇaṃ (padavarṇaṃ). He is known for his ability to compose in the most complex of tāḷas.[6] He was also widely revered for his voice and singing ability during his time.