Ramapriya Arts Foundation
In this podcast’s second episode, Dr. Varalakshmi Anandkumar and Smt. Durgga Venkatesh of Ramapriya Arts Foundation provide the organisers’ perspective. They are ready to host concerts once the government gives the green signal. Besides clarifying that sensible precautions will be taken and listeners reassured, they explain why restarting artistic events is essential for health and morale. In Episode 1, Palghat Dr. R. Ramprasad spoke from a musician’s perspective.
This video is part of the Melodies during Maladies podcast. After almost two full months of worldwide quarantine due to COVID, restrictions gradually began loosening in May 2020. In this podcast, musicians, concert organisers and audience members share their thoughts on getting back to physical concerts.
Dr. Varalakshmi Anandkumar’s photograph on the video banner: Courtesy Sri. Rajappane Raju.
Ramapriya Arts was founded by Dr. Varalakshmi Anandkumar and Smt. Durgga Venkatesh in 2018. Dr. Varalakshmi and Smt. Durgga wished to focus on heavy duty classicism in music and other traditional arts. They have conducted concerts of several artistes who may or may not be ‘stars’ but who stand out for their strict classicism. These include Smt Seetha Narayanan, Srimushnam Sri. R. Raja Rao, Sri Vijay Siva and Lalgudi Smt. Vijayalakshmi and younger stars like Sri. Ramakrishnan Murthy and the Akkarai Sisters. They have held dance and Namasankeerthanam programmes too.
Dr. Varalakshmi Anandkumar is an A Graded vocalist of All India Radio with rich concert experience including several prizes from The Music Academy, Krishna Gana Sabha and more. Her foundation in music was laid by Smt. Maragatham Ramaswamy. One of the senior-most students of Sangita Kalanidhi Late Sri. DK Jayaraman, she later trained under Sri. PS Narayanaswamy and is currently a student of Srimushnam Sri. R. Raja Rao. She did a musical feature on Thiruppugazh hymns under a grant from the Department of Culture, Government of India, and learned a vast repertoire from Smt. Shyamala Venkateswaran. She published a book of notated songs popularized by Sri. DK Jayaraman, which was published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. A second is in process. Dr. Varalakshmi is Associate Professor of French at Queen Mary’s College, Chennai. Academically, she is a PhD, MPhil and MA in French.
Smt. Durgga Venkatesh is an A Graded vocalist of All India Radio. She learned from Sangita Kalanidhi Late Sri. Nedunuri Krishnamurthy and Sangita Kalanidhi Late Sri. DK Jayaraman. She also underwent voice training from Sri. V. Subramanyam. She learns currently from Srimushnam Sri. R. Raja Rao and Smt. Ambujam Vedantham. She has won many prizes in music competitions and performed many concerts. She has an MA in Music from Madras University. A Cost Accountant, she worked in the corporate sector for over 15 years . Due to an ardent passion for Carnatic Music, she left her Accounting career and has taken up Music and Music related research.
Check out the earlier Quarantunes podcast where several Carnatic and Hindustani musicians shared their thoughts while quarantined.
I see more of adaptability either with music or with any other thing. Covid19 will leave a strong impressions on earth and Carnatic music will also feel the impact especially on staging of live concerts in an auditorium. The participants in the podcast spoke from their perspective as connected to music, and the new normal will have its say in all matters of our life style. Even without Covid19, the staging of Dramas slowly hid behind the stage, and no one regret for it, when a more powerful medium of entertainment replaced it namely Television, internet aided online productions. Let us accept the reality and happily remember the days of live auditorium concerts of the past, and as being an audience along with others on many such music concerts .