The KanjiraMan

B Shree Sundarkumar, aka The KanjiraMan, is acknowledged as a wizard on the kanjira by artistes young and old, prolific and niche, Carnatic and other genres. An “artiste of eminence” says Sangita Kalanidhi Umayalpuram K Sivaraman. “Incomparable,” says kanjira artiste BS Purushotham. “Rare calibre,” says vocalist Abhishek Raghuram, who himself…

Sumesh Narayanan

Bubbly, enthusiastic, cheerful – these describe multi-faceted Sumesh Seshadri Nath Narayanan to a T. As a vibrant mridangist, he has accompanied Bombay Jayashri, Abhishek Raghuram, S Sowmya, Sikkil Gurucharan and more. A key member of the fusion bands IndoSoul and Sparsh, he has also acted in the recently released movie,…

Thyagaraja – First among equals.

Renowned vocalist Abhishek Raghuram put it perfectly when he called the Chennai Music Season (referred to as just ‘the season’ by aficionados) a huge cultural extravaganza. Indeed, heritage walks, lectures, lecture demonstrations, interesting combo events (such as sarees and music) etc. abound, besides music, dance and, well, food (but that…

Music, my car and me.

I rounded off my intermittent attendance of this music season with my final concert for the year, yesterday, that of Sri. Abhishek Raghuram at the Music Academy. Driving in at about 6.10 pm for the 6.45 pm concert, I approached the valets. They told me unequivocally that there was no…