It is rare that a Carnatic musician, playing
in the American heartland, will do anything innovative. Most Carnatic
musicians save their best efforts for the Madras crowd, knowing that mere
competence will serve on a U.S. tour. Last weekend, we had one of those rare
performances in Edmond, a suburb of Oklahoma City. It was the best concert
that I have been to in the U.S. Only the nostalgic memory of some December
concerts in Madras' "season" keeps me from saying that it was the very best.
But I was talking about innovation. Maybe it was the smallness of the crowd
that caused him to do it (less than a hundred people); he launched into a
lullaby toward the end of the concert. There are few musicians who will
come anywhere near a lilting lullaby at a sit-down, formal concert. Fewer
still, I imagine, who can carry it off. Perhaps, I am thinking even as I
am typing this in, he would not have dared to do this in Madras with its
hordes of purists and connoisseurs. There may be advantages I didn't even
know of to living in Oklahoma.
