RK Shriramkumar – Podcast

Though popularly known as a Carnatic violinist, Sri. RK Shriramkumar is trained in vocal music too and is Guru to several leading Carnatic performers and aspiring performers, and mentor to even more. In this podcast, he expresses his belief about the power of faith to tide us through these unprecedented times. He is now learning new compositions he has always wanted to, and rediscovering and re-approaching aspects of rAgA-s, sAhityA and manodharmam. After his talk, Sri. Shriramkumar plays a piece in mukhAri for us.

Sri. Shriramkumar accompanies a plethora of leading artistes and is one of the rare ones to do so for his students as well.  His deep knowledge of the music, not limited to form, language, lyric or repertoire, augmented by an excellent sense of humour, and an inherent ability to get along with those of all ages, makes him highly sought after for lecture-demonstrations and presentations in India and abroad.

This podcast is part of the Quarantunes series, featuring Indian Classical Musicians, recorded during the worldwide shutdown resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Released one by one, the full series is at https://lakshmianand.com

Sri Shriramkumar comes from a family of eminent Carnatic musicians hailing from Rudrapatna in Karnataka. He had his initial violin lessons from Smt. Savitri Satyamurthy and was trained in vocal and violin by his grandfather Sri RK Venkatarama Shastry. He later received guidance in violin from Sri VV Subrahmanyam and in vocal from Sri DK Jayaraman. His violin playing is faithful to the sAhityA of the composition. He has accompanied several doyens of the Carnatic arena including Semmangudi Sri. R Srinivasa Iyer, Smt. MS Subbulakshmi, Smt. DK Pattammal, Sri. DK Jayaraman, Palghat Sri. KV Narayanaswamy, Smt. T Brinda, Smt. T Mukta, and many more.