The many awards Kollengode Viswanatha Narayanaswamy (KVN) received, including the Padma Sri, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar and the Sangita Kalanidhi, served only to publicly highlight the talents of an artiste who was already acknowledged in his own lifetime as a consummate Carnatic musician. KVN’s all-round expertise was packaged in…
In 1926, Bangalore Nagarathnamma was not allowed to perform at the annual tribute to Saint Thyagaraja – because she was female – despite constructing his temple at her personal expense. It was 1941 before men and women could perform together at the Thiruvaiyaru Thyagaraja Aradhana. Now the armed forces have…
With globalisation, Indian artforms are more widespread. Larger auditoriums, extensive travel and many more concerts have inspired rethinks on the construction of many traditional instruments. Restrictive luggage constraints made portability key. Long tours without access to repair technicians necessitated durability. Such practical needs coupled with a desire for a unique…
‘Shruti mata, layam pita’ – the saying goes in the Carnatic tradition of music. So crucial is the baseline pitch for Indian classical music – whether Carnatic or Hindustani, bhajans or ghazals, dance and more. Consequently, the tanpura (or tambura in Carnatic parlance) has been integral to the arts. Many…
A recent Carnatic concert presented in the south-eastern city of Atlanta in the United States reflected a beautiful amalgam of cultures, faiths, diasporas and demographics. The event was organized by Emory University’s Office of Spiritual and Religious Life, and Telugu Studies at Emory. The venue, Cannon Chapel, within Emory’s…
He is perhaps the most polarising mridangists of current times and K Arun Prakash is well aware of it. “What I am doing is unprecedented and anything unprecedented takes time to get accepted,” he says, in the unflustered manner typical of him. One realises very soon that he is a…
His calm and composed countenance belies the vidvat within. RK Shriramkumar’s is profound all-round musicality, signifying an amalgam of intellect, knowledge, creativity and bhAvam (the conveying of emotion) combined with dedication and deference to the artform itself. He is a solo violinist, accompanying violinist, respected vAgayEkkAra (a lyricist who also…
Even before her first formal lesson, a varnam, the young girl had already picked up the corpus of songs that the entire household knew by heart, like Santhi Nilava Vendum, Eppadi Paadinaro, Maamava Pattabhirama. Nithyasree Mahadevan was born on 25th August 1973 to I. Sivakumar and Lalitha Sivakumar. A more…
With the exception of, perhaps, the Carnatic fraternity’s annual renditions of Thyagaraja’s pancaratnam-s, group singing is rare in Indian Classical Music. Dr. Kanniks Kannikeswaran has taken this to a different level, however, pioneering music for groups of 40-250 using Indian lyrics set to Indian rAgam-s, inspired by world musical ensembles…
“We get criticised for trying to break conventions,” says Hardial Rai, the founder of ZerOculture, a UK based organisation. “We do that to adapt to new audiences, new aesthetics and new sensibilities,” The website of ZerOclassikal, ZerOculture’s musical arm, terms it an initiative to ‘offer a radical approach to south…