In 1974, he had to jump over a wall to listen to MS Subbulakshmi in his native Ernakulam. Barely ten years later, he was her regular mridangist. For almost five decades now, Krishnan Visweswara Prasad, this year’s Sangeetha Choodamani awardee from Krishna Gana Sabha, has been a steady and dignified…
Unlike vocalists and solo instrumentalists who can preplan what to present, for accompanying musicians, each concert is a mystery unraveled only as it unwinds. In music season, they can play 2-3 concerts daily, switching gears from musician to musician as seamlessly as changing talam between songs. This article appeared online…
Mridangist, vocalist, violinist, trained in Hindustani, PhD in music and Guru to many, 92-year-young Dr. T.V. Gopalakrishnan (TVG) is an incredibly versatile musician and talking to him was a walk through over 75 years of music. At age 9, TVG played second mridangam for Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar (Chembai) at a…
On YouTube is a K.V. Narayanaswamy (KVN) concert, listing co-artistes M. Chandrasekaran, Umayalpuram Sivaraman and G. Harishankar. Presenting ‘vAtApi gaNapatim’ after a shloka, KVN sings a classic sangati at the 2 minute 52 second mark when, suddenly, mid-line, the kanjira comes in – for all of 9-10 aksharam-s – clear,…
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…
Known for nuanced and sensitive accompaniment, veteran mridangist and academic Sangita Kalanidhi Trichy Sankaran has played for Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Musiri Subramania Iyer, Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, Ramnad Krishnan, Madurai Mani Iyer, G.N. Balasubramaniam, M.D. Ramanathan, K.V. Narayanaswamy, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Flute Mali and many others across generations. “I jokingly say…
When Jayalakshmi Balakrishnan suggested to the family of the Late Sundaravalli Ammal that some of the lady’s compositions be set to tune and performed, she also knew exactly whom to entrust the task to. Most know K. Arun Prakash as an erudite and avant-garde mridangist. However, besides percussion, he is…
Senior mridangist J. Vaidhyanathan believes his commitment to accompaniment begins right from arriving well on time for the concert. “A concert is like a yagna, a lot of effort—we should not cause any consternation to either the organiser or the artists—rather, we should ensure that we do whatever we can…
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…
Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer (SSI) strode Carnatic music like a colossus. However, none in his family followed in his footsteps. His eldest daughter, Santha Kasy Aiyar, explains, “My father was categorically against his family pursuing music professionally. He felt musicians were perceived as lower in the social ladder than those formally…