Hardly a week passes by without one hearing about yet another Bay Area desi band. This time, it is a Tamil light music band called 'IlayarAgam' (translated as 'Youthful Melody').
Ilayaragam is steadfast in promoting their vision, which is to (a) play only melodies and (b) to stay away from kuttu pATTu business. They want to play melodies, which are masterpieces and stir our souls every time we listen to them. These are songs which we have all been listening to since our childhood and will cherish them in our hearts, till the day we forget ourselves. As the band name itself suggests, the song list would consist mostly of Maestro Ilayaraja's compositions. Good numbers from other composers (who have been keyboardists with Ilayaraja or keyboardists with Ilayaraja's keyboardists), :-) will also be chosen.
Ilayaragam's vision is bold and greatly differentiated from other Tamil light music band's 'formula driven' agenda of serving a 'buffet' of Tamil songs, of which kuttu pATTu is a standard item. It's a highly commendable vision and I wish Ilayaragam good luck in spreading its melodic fragrances far and wide.
On March 7 2009, Ilayaragam went on stage for the first time. Their debut performance was called Arangetram (literally meaning going up on the stage for the first time). Although short and sweet with only 7 songs, it was a very well received show. The audience greatly enjoyed the song selection and went home craving for more. They raved about the orchestration, especially the keys, lead, rhythm, bass and drums, which are absolutely essential for bringing an Ilaiyaraja number to life on stage. Although I liked all the songs, my personal favorite was Oh Butterfly - what a melody from Ilaiyaraja! The band just nailed it and I had a great time mixing the sound for that song and also of course for the entire show.
The song list and order was as follows:
1. Overture (Original composition by Vidya Shankar in Raga HarikAmbhoji)
2. Sangeetha Megam
3. Enna Sattam
4. Sundari Neeyum
5. Oh Butterfly
6. Ooru Sanam
7. Nenjukkul
8. Ennamma Kannu
The Ilayaragam Arangetram show consisted of the following members:
Singers: Rangarajan Ramachandran, Gopal Tiruvengadam, TN Arunagiri, Janani Vishwanathan
Chorus: Srividya Guru, Swetha Venkataraman, Jenita Mariadasan and Uthra Ramachandran
Keyboards Main: Vidya Shankar
Keyboards: Ramakrishnan Guru and Nathan Narayanan
Conductor: Ramakrishnan Guru
Bass Guitar: Rangarajan Ramachandran
Lead Guitar: Easwar Swaminathan
Rhythm Guitar: Ashok Jayaraman
Drums: Saravanan Chidambaram
Pads: Nathan Narayanan and Logesh Manohar
Sound Engineering and Recording: TN Arunagiri and Nathan Narayanan
MC: Anitha Rangarajan
Videos are available here: http://tinyurl.com/iragam-videos
Audio recording highlights are available here:
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