It is hard to find superlatives to describe the carnatic music performance by 26-year old T.M. Krishna and company at MIT Wong auditorium on Sunday, November 3, 2002. This concert was organized as a part of MITHAS (MIT Heritage of the Arts of Southasia) Fall 2002 concert series. T.M. Krishna simply mesmerized the audience with his music. His voice modulation, clean rendition of kritis, patience with raga development and sruti control were absolutely impeccable. His brisk and flawless rendition of kalpana swaras brought back the fond memories of the carnatic music legends Sri. Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and Sri. G.N.Balasubramanian. The concert lasted for nearly 4 hours without a break and the audience couldn't feel the time pass by. T.M.Krishna was accompanied by Ganesh Prasad on violin and Vaidhyanathan on Mridangam. It was indeed a superb performance by all the three musicians.

T.M. Krishna started the concert with "Pankajakshi", a rare Varnam in Kamboji. This was followed by two brisk compositions in Saveri and Budhdhamanohari, and then by a very slow and peaceful rendition of Dikshitar's "Chethashree" in Dwijavanthi. We could see that the audiences were clearly hooked to music at this point. The main piece was in raga Thodi, "Ninne Nammi" - a great composition of Shyma Sastry. This piece lasted for 1 hour and 15 minutes. It was a solid performance and the musicians covered all aspects very nicely, a beautiful development of raga, competent and measured rendition of the kriti, niravals and kalpana swaras, followed by a nice and short thani avarthanam in "misra chapu" thalam. After the main piece, TM Krishna sang a song composed by Sri. G.N. Balasubramanian in Amritha Behag. Ragam, Thanam, Pallavi was in Mayamalavagowla followed by a ragamalika. It was a great treat. The Viruttham and songs in Behag, Neelambari and Sindhubhairavi ended the concert with an impressive note. Wow, what a spectacular concert!! If you would like to get a copy of live recording of this concert, please contact Venkat (781) 647-9522, venkat_venkataraman@yahoo.com.

T.M. Krishna had his initial training in carnatic music from Sri. Seetharama Sharma and later had advanced training from Chengalpet Sri. Ranganthan and Sri. Semmengudi Srinivasa Iyer.

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