Singer TM Krishna’s latest initiative strives to make Carnatic music a symbol of communal harmony

TM Krishna spent a considerable time tuning his tampura before Monday evening’s concert. He needn’t have; he was already in tune... with the hundreds of people gathered outside picturesque Christ the King Church inside Loyola College campus for a concert organised by the college, the Islamic Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought and Sri Vishnu Mohan Foundation.

The unique location for the musician’s kutcheri is an extension of his quest to take Carnatic music out of sabhas and place it within the ear’s reach of the common man. After successful “gigs” at the Urur Olcott Kuppam Vizha, Krishna has taken another seemingly-impossible step — performing in a church!

As the evening air wafted through, only occasionally interrupted by the buzz of a local train and the sounds of students chatting, Krishna launched into a musical journey traversing classical ragas including Bhairavi and Mohanam. The song list mirrored the theme of the evening: communal harmony.

And so, Krishna chose to start with a sloka put together by Mahatma Gandhi himself, before launching into a number composed by Vedanayakam Shastri in Mohanam raga. The singer was a picture of earnestness as he sojourned into the nuances and gamakas of the compositions that traversed different faiths and languages. “I won’t talk a lot, I’ll just sing,” he had announced earlier. And sing he did.

Even as the audience savoured the unique experience of the well lit-up church in the background, Krishna went on to sing varied compositions — one from the Bhakti movement, one from Nagoor Hanifa’s song in praise of Allah, and a Malayalam song on Jesus. While his focus was on the songs, his wit was also on display as he gently chided the men manning the sound console, repeatedly tweaking it: “Just leave that alone and listen to the music.”

Krishna’s vocal dexterity was aptly supplemented by Akkarai Subhalakshmi on the violin, Arunprakash Krishnan on the mridangam and N Guruprasad on the ghatam. For Subhalakshmi, the experience of performing in a Chennai church was “divine”. “Music performed anywhere is divine and beautiful. I’ve performed in churches in Europe, but I felt happy doing that in Chennai. Bringing Carnatic music to such varied venues and audiences is a noble cause,” she says.

The choice of songs were a pleasant surprise, not just to the audience but also to the accompanying artistes. Krishnan, who played the mridangam, says that most of the songs were new to him as well. “Since I always try to perform with an ear for the sound of the lyrics and the character of the melodic phrases, I was able to embellish and highlight beautiful music.We all know that ‘manida neyam’ is very important to us as human beings. This thought was reiterated within me after the concert.”

Krishna chose to end the musical evening on another unique note — with a one-line hymn in Hebrew on harmony and togetherness. He requested the audience to join in too. He announced that it was fine if no one knew the language. The audience responded. It was a language that was alien to them. But it spoke a language that they all understood.