Praveen Sparsh’s recent passion project, Unreserved, puts the mridangam in settings outside its traditional confines, and marries it with sounds he painstakingly recorded over the years on treks, at traffic signals, airports, rail and bus stations. To hear music, or the potential for music, in noise – or what the…
If one has to be recognised in Carnatic music, one just HAS to relocate to Chennai, it is said. There can be no substitute for listening to live concerts is also oft-heard. This respected violinist, however, has put paid to both the above statements. Charulatha Ramanujam is appreciated not only…
United States-based Carnatic violinist Sri. Rajeev Mukundan began violin lessons from Sri. N Govindarajan and has been under the guidance of Sangita Kalanidhi Kum. A Kanyakumari for over a decade now. An A Graded artiste from All India Radio, Sri. Rajeev has traveled extensively on concerts, performed with his Guru…
In this episode of Quarantunes, we hear from young mridangist and percussionist Sri. Sumesh Narayanan. He is known for his vibrant accompaniment in Carnatic concerts where he plays for leading artistes. This podcast is part of the Quarantunes series, featuring Indian Classical Musicians, recorded during the worldwide shutdown resulting…
In this episode, Sri. B Shree Sundarkumar, kanjira exponent, is forthright about his many emotions at the present time and juxtaposes his personal situation against the world at large. “When the whole world is suffering, I alone am not unique.” This podcast is part of the Quarantunes series, featuring Indian…
“Silly humans. Why don’t you pause? How ignorantly you let so much pass?” – from a poem written by Lalgudi Smt. Vijayalakshmi, in the voice of Mother Nature. Lalgudi Smt. Vijayalakshmi is the daughter and disciple of the renowned violinist and musician Lalgudi Sri. G Jayaraman. Smt. Vijayalakshmi expresses her…
The Akkarai Sisters, Kum. Subhalakshmi and Kum. Sornalatha, perform duets in both vocal and violin, besides individually accompanying many artistes on the violin. While anxious about the present situation, they are utilizing the time for more practice and enjoying simple pleasures that eluded them earlier. They sing a snippet of…
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,…
Intuition coupled with rigorous practice has made the violinist a front line performer. Her silky smooth bowing, unhesitating fluency, thorough competence and immaculate accompanying skills make Charumathi Raghuraman a sought-after violinist for leading artistes in the Carnatic firmament such as Ranjani Gayatri, Sudha Ragunathan, Vijay Siva, Gayathri Venkataraghavan, Ramakrishnan Murthy…
Gone. Never to be forgotten. The outpouring of emotions on Mandolin Shrinivas’s premature death has been unprecedented – with any famous artiste, one hears messages from his ilk, but rarely do we see the multitudes expressing affection of this magnitude. Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, emails – hordes are in a suspension of…