Sameer Athreya (born 12 December 1999) is a child
prodigy who gave his first public concert at age 7
and won the hearts of music lovers with his amazing
display of Hindustani classical music. He sings
khayal, thumri, taranas, bhajans, as well as
devotional songs(Sanskrit, Hindi, Kannada,
Marathi, Gujarati) with the panache of a veteran .He
also plays on harmonium. He has been featured on
All India Radio and television channels (including
TV 9 and Kasturi channel's Swaramadhurya
programme which has been telecast repeatedly). He
has received rave reviews in The Hindu, The Asian
Age, Deccan Chronicle, Udayavani and Taranga
(Kannada) publications. He excels in complicated ragas
and intricate talas
For the past two years he has been training under
Dr.Sakuntala Narasimhan of the Rampur-Sahaswan
gharana.
He has also set to tune some Dasa Vani
(devotional Kannada songs). Like any child of
his age, he also loves watching cartoons, skating,
Karate and working at the computer. His cartoon
strip creation on Saving Mother Earth won
him an award in February 2010.
Some memorable concerts:
20.01.2007. First full length public recital aged
7, at Veenapani Centre for Arts, Bangalore,
accompanying himself on the Harmonium,
Received electronic swarmandal in appreciation
of his genius.
27.05.2007. Concert for Swarohan Cultural
Organisation, Bangalore , honoured with
prestigious gift of a tanpura.
11.11.2007. Annual Celebration programme of
Ghethak Tabla Vidyalaya Bangalore
5.12.2007. Concert at Dattajayanti annual
music festival, Harihar.
2006-08. Television appearances and recitals
on channels ETV, Kasturi and TV 9.
12.01.2009. All India Radio interview with
recital.
12.04.2009. Concert at Raga Sangama,
Sahakaranagar.
25.04.2009. Participated in Dignity Foundation
concert at Indian Institute of World Culture,
Bangalore.
4.05.2009. Concert at Sirsi
14.08.2009. Concert at Poornapragna Vidya
peeta, on the occasion of Krishna Janmastami
13.11.2009. Harihar Datta Jayanti music
festival, jointly with Dr. Sakuntala Narasimhan
Some press comments:
His profound grasp of the advanced aspects and
subtle nuances of Hindustani music leave you
with that sense of incredulity and wonder that
happens when you confront child prodigies.....
His sense of shruthi is amazingly perfect....The
sweet and sonorous voice is definitely that of a
child but the mastery of melody and rhythm are
that of an accomplished musician� -The Hindu
27.4.2007
7 year old Sameer.S.Athreya's recent Hindustani
music concert in Bangalore included a repertoire
worth taking note of; a tarana in Desh raga,
Punjabi thumri and a Haridasa Krithi in Kannada��
-The Asian Age,11.2.2007.
Sameer who turned 7 last month could easily
qualify for Ustad status judging by his astounding
knowledge of, and command over, Hindustani
Classical music.....It hasto be seen to be
believed....This youngster had the audience
smiling and crying alternately, with joy.
Charmingly interacting with audience Sameer
stole their hearts that evening. Such prodigies are
rare to come by....� Radel Newsletter Jan-March
2007
He can tune songs in multiple Ragas, Can
play Harmonium and Piano easily, Can read
and write in 7 languages , all at the tender age
of 6,This kid can easily be called a Prodigy.
Taranga, feature article for children's day
Nov 2006
Contact :
Parents: Satish K & Vidya K R.
Address:- T-157, 14th main, 35th cross,
4 th T Block , Jayanagar,Bangalore- 41
Ph no :-080-22459223
Mobile :-98450-63458
Email :-vidyakr@yahoo.com
Guru
Sameer is being trained by Dr.Sakuntala
Narasimhan of the Rampur- Sahaswan gharana.
Dr Sakuntala Narasimhan is
the only vocalist in the country to have sung in
the National Programme of Music of
nationwide TV, in both the Hindustani and
Carnatic styles.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Carnatic Carnival
(Adapted from something I wrote for The Hindu Folio on 29 November 1998).
For all the controversy that surrounded it, the recent Commonwealth Games was a grand spectacle, a mammoth task of organization. It must have been a nightmare of logisitics, like all mega events of the kind.
If the organizers of the Games had consulted that uniquely south Indian body of men, the ubiquitous sabha secretaries of Chennai, they would have gained valuable insights into how to run a multidimensional show of even greater complexity. These miracle makers manage year after year to conduct hundreds of Carnatic music concerts packed into a month of frenzied programming, featuring formidable teams, at dozens of far flung theatres of war. Yes, these are the modern versions of the Carnatic War fought not by the British and the French, but by these little cultural oligarchies. In a marvel of logistics, time and resource management, they detonate an explosion of rhythm and raga razzmatazz that leaves whole suburban populations stunned. Their weaponry? Antiquated amplification systems whose noise levels create world records on the Richter scale.
The early morning lec-dems investigate in minute detail such compellingly seminal topics as "The Influence of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on the Development of the Mela Karta Scheme" or "Rap, Raga and Rachmaninov: Is Fusion The Way to Go?". That is where demure damsels, fiery feminists, voluble vocalists, and intimidatory instrumentalists vie for top honours with obstreperous octogenarians and superannuated scholars.
These are followed by the virgin volleys of child prodigies and teenage tyros, unleashed at an unsuspecting public straying idly in after a hearty repast at the cafeteria. (The last IMRB survey reportedly revealed that, for every critically ill concertgoer, there were at least three committed canteengoers. Their unfaltering support has over the decades raised what started as a modest sideshow into a spectacular main attraction during the music season. In fact, in some circles it has been suggested that the Chennai December season be renamed the Food n' Frolic Fest.
Some of these postprandial somnambulists settle down into deep slumber even as the next batch of curious onlookers fights its way towards the rare empty seat. By now they are hampered by the growing crowd, and overzealous ushers who learnt their job by correspondence and never got beyond lesson two, to borrow a simile from "English literature's performing flea", P.G. Wodehouse. This is the high point of the unfolding drama, the last chance before the next season comes round to pass judgment on the stars of tomorrow without paying for admission.
To borrow yet another intriguing piece of imagery by yet another eminent Englishman, Bertrand Russell, a Martian visitor who happens to land his flying saucer at the Music Academy one December afternoon, will go away with the impression that earthlings who have strayed from the path of virtue are packed into uncomfortable seats and tortured by sophisticated acoustics; those guilty of the more heinous crimes are banished to the balcony.
Suitably stirred by the vigour of the vocal gymnastics on display during the next two hours, these devout worshippers of the divine music of our ancestors, spring into action even as the last strains of the mangalam begin to fill the auditorium. To make a quick dash for the door, and head straight for the canteen is for them as effortless as drowning the vocalist's feeble attempts at being heard is for violinists and percussionists. After reviving themselves with a stiff coffee or two, they then cleverly take a detour around the ticket window towards the exit, to rest and recuperate before they hit the roads on the morrow. For this is the hour that produces the man - the supreme optimist at the ticket counter who hopes against hope, that this season's share of the uninitiated will pay to listen to the senior vidwan featured here, and not gravitate towards a free cutcheri elsewhere.
What infinite variety this indefatigable band of music lovers present! An endangered species is the doughty old warriors whose first season coincided with the debut of Ariyakudi Ramanuja Ayyangar, the trailblazer whom critics have charged with inventing the modern cutcheri format. These are the most admirable segment of the audience, for they have braved the rigours of classical music in the severe Chennai winter for over half a century, sweater-and muffler-clad, and remaining stolidly critical of succeeding generations of vidwans. Anno Domini is catching up and alas, this species will soon be extinct, replaced entirely by more thick skinned listeners whom the December cold leaves untouched.
Mylapore mamis too are fast becoming a vanishing feature of the season. The swirling silks and glittering diamonds which were an integral part of the scene earlier are becoming less conspicuous every year. One school of thought however has it that the mamis still continue to throng the sabhas, only they are disguised as lesser mortals. This deduction is based on a recent research finding that the number of patrons in the front rows who talk through concerts has actually increased in the last decade. (A similar finding is that the number of men who sing along is also on the upswing, with a significant growth in percentage of apaswaram. At last count too, an incredible 22 per cent of the audience were found guilty of wrong tala accompaniment during tani avartanam).
To earn the applause of a Chennai audience is not easy, unless you happen to be a Hindustani instrumentalist with long hair, purple kurta and an American accent with which you announce that you will treat them to the exotic delight of raag Hamsadhwani. The Carnatic musician may occasionally mesmerise audiences abroad. But his manodharma is scarcely equal to the irresistible lure of the 8.35 bus home. Every percussionist from Palghat Mani Iyer down to Vikku Vinayakram has lost out to the fatal attraction of the aroma of coffee wafting in from the canteen at tani avartanam time.
Increasingly, devotees from the wicked West descend on staid old Chennai during the December season. Some of them look more Indian than Indians, veshti-jibba, sari-pigtails, jolna bags and all, but what really distinguishes these seekers of nirvana through raga and gamaka is their glazed expression. And they, like their Indian counterparts, keep coming back for more, such is the addictive power of the season for all seasons.
For all the controversy that surrounded it, the recent Commonwealth Games was a grand spectacle, a mammoth task of organization. It must have been a nightmare of logisitics, like all mega events of the kind.
If the organizers of the Games had consulted that uniquely south Indian body of men, the ubiquitous sabha secretaries of Chennai, they would have gained valuable insights into how to run a multidimensional show of even greater complexity. These miracle makers manage year after year to conduct hundreds of Carnatic music concerts packed into a month of frenzied programming, featuring formidable teams, at dozens of far flung theatres of war. Yes, these are the modern versions of the Carnatic War fought not by the British and the French, but by these little cultural oligarchies. In a marvel of logistics, time and resource management, they detonate an explosion of rhythm and raga razzmatazz that leaves whole suburban populations stunned. Their weaponry? Antiquated amplification systems whose noise levels create world records on the Richter scale.
The early morning lec-dems investigate in minute detail such compellingly seminal topics as "The Influence of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on the Development of the Mela Karta Scheme" or "Rap, Raga and Rachmaninov: Is Fusion The Way to Go?". That is where demure damsels, fiery feminists, voluble vocalists, and intimidatory instrumentalists vie for top honours with obstreperous octogenarians and superannuated scholars.
These are followed by the virgin volleys of child prodigies and teenage tyros, unleashed at an unsuspecting public straying idly in after a hearty repast at the cafeteria. (The last IMRB survey reportedly revealed that, for every critically ill concertgoer, there were at least three committed canteengoers. Their unfaltering support has over the decades raised what started as a modest sideshow into a spectacular main attraction during the music season. In fact, in some circles it has been suggested that the Chennai December season be renamed the Food n' Frolic Fest.
Some of these postprandial somnambulists settle down into deep slumber even as the next batch of curious onlookers fights its way towards the rare empty seat. By now they are hampered by the growing crowd, and overzealous ushers who learnt their job by correspondence and never got beyond lesson two, to borrow a simile from "English literature's performing flea", P.G. Wodehouse. This is the high point of the unfolding drama, the last chance before the next season comes round to pass judgment on the stars of tomorrow without paying for admission.
To borrow yet another intriguing piece of imagery by yet another eminent Englishman, Bertrand Russell, a Martian visitor who happens to land his flying saucer at the Music Academy one December afternoon, will go away with the impression that earthlings who have strayed from the path of virtue are packed into uncomfortable seats and tortured by sophisticated acoustics; those guilty of the more heinous crimes are banished to the balcony.
Suitably stirred by the vigour of the vocal gymnastics on display during the next two hours, these devout worshippers of the divine music of our ancestors, spring into action even as the last strains of the mangalam begin to fill the auditorium. To make a quick dash for the door, and head straight for the canteen is for them as effortless as drowning the vocalist's feeble attempts at being heard is for violinists and percussionists. After reviving themselves with a stiff coffee or two, they then cleverly take a detour around the ticket window towards the exit, to rest and recuperate before they hit the roads on the morrow. For this is the hour that produces the man - the supreme optimist at the ticket counter who hopes against hope, that this season's share of the uninitiated will pay to listen to the senior vidwan featured here, and not gravitate towards a free cutcheri elsewhere.
What infinite variety this indefatigable band of music lovers present! An endangered species is the doughty old warriors whose first season coincided with the debut of Ariyakudi Ramanuja Ayyangar, the trailblazer whom critics have charged with inventing the modern cutcheri format. These are the most admirable segment of the audience, for they have braved the rigours of classical music in the severe Chennai winter for over half a century, sweater-and muffler-clad, and remaining stolidly critical of succeeding generations of vidwans. Anno Domini is catching up and alas, this species will soon be extinct, replaced entirely by more thick skinned listeners whom the December cold leaves untouched.
Mylapore mamis too are fast becoming a vanishing feature of the season. The swirling silks and glittering diamonds which were an integral part of the scene earlier are becoming less conspicuous every year. One school of thought however has it that the mamis still continue to throng the sabhas, only they are disguised as lesser mortals. This deduction is based on a recent research finding that the number of patrons in the front rows who talk through concerts has actually increased in the last decade. (A similar finding is that the number of men who sing along is also on the upswing, with a significant growth in percentage of apaswaram. At last count too, an incredible 22 per cent of the audience were found guilty of wrong tala accompaniment during tani avartanam).
To earn the applause of a Chennai audience is not easy, unless you happen to be a Hindustani instrumentalist with long hair, purple kurta and an American accent with which you announce that you will treat them to the exotic delight of raag Hamsadhwani. The Carnatic musician may occasionally mesmerise audiences abroad. But his manodharma is scarcely equal to the irresistible lure of the 8.35 bus home. Every percussionist from Palghat Mani Iyer down to Vikku Vinayakram has lost out to the fatal attraction of the aroma of coffee wafting in from the canteen at tani avartanam time.
Increasingly, devotees from the wicked West descend on staid old Chennai during the December season. Some of them look more Indian than Indians, veshti-jibba, sari-pigtails, jolna bags and all, but what really distinguishes these seekers of nirvana through raga and gamaka is their glazed expression. And they, like their Indian counterparts, keep coming back for more, such is the addictive power of the season for all seasons.
The Chennai Season
First published im The Bengal Post
The veteran violinist on stage is a picture of composure. He coaxes the most transcendental sounds out of his ancient violin. His opening salvo stirs the soul as only a great raga at the hands of a great master can. The concert is not all about total surrender in the best bhakti mode. It offers joy and playfulness as well, when the artist moves from worshipping at the altar of an omnipresent, compassionate god to marvel at the pranks of the little blue god, playing the perennial favourite, Krishna nee begane baro. As the concert progresses, you seen realise it is a master class for aspiring musicians.
The reverie is unfortunately broken by a cellphone going off in the second row. Soon a middle-aged man is engaged in loud conversation on his cellphone. You try to give him a dirty look and shame him, but he closes his eyes and continues his conversation. Another cellphone rings two rows from you. A couple have an equally loud conversation about the concert, with the man getting a free lesson in raga-identification.
At another venue, the same evening, a young woman is playing the flute with the mastery of someone years senior to her. Ten minutes into the concert, a young man walks in and occupies a seat in the front row. Seasoned listeners can identify him as the husband of the flautist on stage. Now what does he do to encourage his wife? He stretches his legs, leans back and spreads out the afternoon issue of Kutcheri Buzz--the tabloid avidly consumed by the hordes of music lovers who throng the auditoria during the famed Chennai music season, now covering almost all of November and December.
People constantly walk in and walk out. Videographers and photographers occupy vantage positions, unmindful of the people whose views they are blocking. Children wail. Mothers run out in panic.
The Chennai Season has arrived. People, who never so much as peep into an auditorium during the rest of the year, now invade all the well known halls of Chennai. Banners and hoardings mar the aesthetics of the concerts as much as the loud and often erratic amplification. When the musicians are not asking the mikemen to increase the volume of the “feedback”–invariably taken to be a signal to raise the decibellage of the speakers aimed at the audience—the senior citizens in the front rows shout “Not audible” in a chorus.
This is the time local Carnatic music buffs as well as the NRIs who descend on Chennai every winter go from concert hall to concert hall to take in one or more of the thousands of “cutcheris” organised in a marvel of logistics and time management. Various sabhas, a ubiquitous, uniquely Tamil Nadu institution, vie with one another to bring the best of Carnatic music to the city’s audiences in a frenzy of programming. Lecture demonstrations and concerts are held throughout the day, starting as early as 7.30 a.m. and ending around 10 p.m. for two weeks. Because each sabha starts its festival on a different date, the whole frenetic schedule nowadays stretches to a couple of months.
Kitchens are closed at countless homes, as there’s no time to cook and clean or even stop over between concerts. Delicious ‘tiffin’ and aromatic ‘full meals’ in the temporary eateries specially put up for the season draw rasikas from all parts of the city, but those who are there for the food alone and not the music far outnumber the music-lovers.
The unique atmosphere of the season has to be seen to be believed. All the great and aspiring artists of Carnatic music perform at different venues. Many of them overdo it, accepting literally every invitation to perform for fear of offending the sabha secretaries, their lifeline to a successful career in music. This season, some of the stars have decided to limit their appearances in order to preserve their voices (or instruments) and retain the freshness of their music. (One hugely popular star has gone on record saying she is really taking it easy, she is only doing 15 concerts during the season)!
Every newspaper brings out special supplements on the season. Some TV channels even conduct their own festivals. Critics damn or praise the musicians, but today’s musicians are often well educated and extremely tech-savvy, perfectly capable of striking back at the pen pushers.
“Carnatic music is alive and well”, seems to be the verdict of most critics, but old timers predictably lament the inability of today’s practitioners to equal the class of the stalwarts of the past.
Among the musicians themselves, opinions vary as to the state of Carnatic music today. Some say, ‘Those were the days when the rasika-s were really serious about attending season concerts and it was not just a fad. Today, we miss the serious rasika.’
Others say, “The audience is more demanding now. It inspires us through the year to do well, give of our best.”
Everyone who has ever been a part of the Chennai Season will however agree on one thing: There is nothing in the national music calendar to beat it for sheer excitement.
The veteran violinist on stage is a picture of composure. He coaxes the most transcendental sounds out of his ancient violin. His opening salvo stirs the soul as only a great raga at the hands of a great master can. The concert is not all about total surrender in the best bhakti mode. It offers joy and playfulness as well, when the artist moves from worshipping at the altar of an omnipresent, compassionate god to marvel at the pranks of the little blue god, playing the perennial favourite, Krishna nee begane baro. As the concert progresses, you seen realise it is a master class for aspiring musicians.
The reverie is unfortunately broken by a cellphone going off in the second row. Soon a middle-aged man is engaged in loud conversation on his cellphone. You try to give him a dirty look and shame him, but he closes his eyes and continues his conversation. Another cellphone rings two rows from you. A couple have an equally loud conversation about the concert, with the man getting a free lesson in raga-identification.
At another venue, the same evening, a young woman is playing the flute with the mastery of someone years senior to her. Ten minutes into the concert, a young man walks in and occupies a seat in the front row. Seasoned listeners can identify him as the husband of the flautist on stage. Now what does he do to encourage his wife? He stretches his legs, leans back and spreads out the afternoon issue of Kutcheri Buzz--the tabloid avidly consumed by the hordes of music lovers who throng the auditoria during the famed Chennai music season, now covering almost all of November and December.
People constantly walk in and walk out. Videographers and photographers occupy vantage positions, unmindful of the people whose views they are blocking. Children wail. Mothers run out in panic.
The Chennai Season has arrived. People, who never so much as peep into an auditorium during the rest of the year, now invade all the well known halls of Chennai. Banners and hoardings mar the aesthetics of the concerts as much as the loud and often erratic amplification. When the musicians are not asking the mikemen to increase the volume of the “feedback”–invariably taken to be a signal to raise the decibellage of the speakers aimed at the audience—the senior citizens in the front rows shout “Not audible” in a chorus.
This is the time local Carnatic music buffs as well as the NRIs who descend on Chennai every winter go from concert hall to concert hall to take in one or more of the thousands of “cutcheris” organised in a marvel of logistics and time management. Various sabhas, a ubiquitous, uniquely Tamil Nadu institution, vie with one another to bring the best of Carnatic music to the city’s audiences in a frenzy of programming. Lecture demonstrations and concerts are held throughout the day, starting as early as 7.30 a.m. and ending around 10 p.m. for two weeks. Because each sabha starts its festival on a different date, the whole frenetic schedule nowadays stretches to a couple of months.
Kitchens are closed at countless homes, as there’s no time to cook and clean or even stop over between concerts. Delicious ‘tiffin’ and aromatic ‘full meals’ in the temporary eateries specially put up for the season draw rasikas from all parts of the city, but those who are there for the food alone and not the music far outnumber the music-lovers.
The unique atmosphere of the season has to be seen to be believed. All the great and aspiring artists of Carnatic music perform at different venues. Many of them overdo it, accepting literally every invitation to perform for fear of offending the sabha secretaries, their lifeline to a successful career in music. This season, some of the stars have decided to limit their appearances in order to preserve their voices (or instruments) and retain the freshness of their music. (One hugely popular star has gone on record saying she is really taking it easy, she is only doing 15 concerts during the season)!
Every newspaper brings out special supplements on the season. Some TV channels even conduct their own festivals. Critics damn or praise the musicians, but today’s musicians are often well educated and extremely tech-savvy, perfectly capable of striking back at the pen pushers.
“Carnatic music is alive and well”, seems to be the verdict of most critics, but old timers predictably lament the inability of today’s practitioners to equal the class of the stalwarts of the past.
Among the musicians themselves, opinions vary as to the state of Carnatic music today. Some say, ‘Those were the days when the rasika-s were really serious about attending season concerts and it was not just a fad. Today, we miss the serious rasika.’
Others say, “The audience is more demanding now. It inspires us through the year to do well, give of our best.”
Everyone who has ever been a part of the Chennai Season will however agree on one thing: There is nothing in the national music calendar to beat it for sheer excitement.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Sriram Parasuram
Had he just focussed on the violin, he might already have gone down as one of the great solo and accompanying Carnatic violinists of all time, fit to rank with giants like Lalgudi G Jayaraman and TN Krishnan. As it is, he is certainly rated as one of the top accompanists of today, with a sound as sweet as the best the instrument can offer.
The trouble with—or rather the value of—Sriram Parasuram is that his accomplishments in music are wider than most musicians can only dream of, even if they have the breadth of vision to look beyond their own area of specialisation. Both heredity and environment must have played equal parts in the evolution of this multifaceted artist who straddles the musical universe with expertise in several genres—both vocal and violin, Carnatic and Hindustani—and more than passable skill in western classical, jazz, sufi, folk and film music.
With an MBA from IIM-C—following his mechanical engineering degree from Bombay University—and a PhD in world music from the Wesleyan University, Connecticut, USA, Sriram built a superstructure of amazing variety on his upbringing in a typically academically inclined Tamil household in Mumbai also steeped in south Indian classical music.
Many have been the deeply satisfying concerts in which Sriram’s empathetic, bhava-soaked bowing has enhanced the music of lead musicians such as his guru, flautist Tanjavur Viswanathan, contemporary instrumentalist Chitravina Ravikiran or veteran vocalists like RK Srikantan and Nedunuri Krishnamurti. On such occasions, you are transported to another, exalted zone, by a man you are convinced was born to play the violin, and wish he would go deeper still into the realm of Carnatic music with his instrument. But then you listen to a lecture-demonstration by him—along with Hindustani vocalist Suhas Vyas—on south Indian ragas in Hindustani music; a musical tribute to the genius of Subbarama Dikshitar who codified a sizable treasury of Carnatic compositions in his Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini of 1904; his presentation of Kabir’s poetry with folk singer Prahlad Singh Tippanya; or his popular TV programme Ellame Sangeetam Taan (It’s All Music), partnered by his wife and well known film singer Anuradha Sriram, in which he switches effortlessly in his role of vocalist from Carnatic alapana and compositions to Hindustani music, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan songs, ghazals and Hindi film songs, and you know that it is impossible to tie such a versatile talent down to one form or branch of music.
Like such famous south Indians before him as A Kanan and N Rajam (Hindustani classical), today's stars Hariharan and Shankar Mahadevan (Hindi film and popular music), and a few others, Sriram Parasuram has mastered an idiom outside his own natural legacy. Learning Hindustani vocal music from the late Pt. CR Vyas, he has reached the level of accomplishment of a ‘native’ practitioner. The difference is that Sriram is of concert level proficiency in both systems. Perhaps the only parallel to this feat of equal mastery in Carnatic and Hindustani music is the case of violinist MS Gopalakrishnan of the celebrated Parur school.
Sriram has collaborated with musicians from different cultures. Javanese Gamelan, West African drumming, and Japanese Koto are some examples of exotica he has played or sung along with. Born in a musically gifted family he partnered his brothers Viswanath and Narayan (Three Brothers and a Violin) and composed the music for an award winning Hindi pop album "Savariya". With his wife, he directed the music for the Tamil film Five Star and produced a Tamil pop album Chennai Girl. He has been awarded the President’s gold medal for Carnatic and Hindustani music.
What impresses you most about Sriram and Anuradha, even more than their versatility—she too is proficient in numerous styles of music including classical—is their firm belief that ellame sangeetam taan. Sriram can render a perfect alap and bandish, follow it without an interval with a complex ragam-tanam-pallavi and finish with a romantic film song, all in one afternoon, with not a trace of one form in another. There are no obvious prejudices, no condescension towards any music of the world, be it classical, folk or film music, bhakti or secular, vocal or instrumental.
Extremely comfortable with technology, Sriram is in touch with the latest trends in world music and appreciates the beauty of Indian film music with its absorption of the best from a variety of sources, its use of orchestration to embellish Indian melodies, its ability to draw the bhava of the music most effectively. For one so contemporary in his attitude to music, Sriram is also a traditionalist when it comes to the core values of classical music. His respect for his own gurus and the past masters of Indian classical music borders on the reverential, and this lends a poignant touch to his lecture demonstrations. His assertion that all Indian music is based on ragas—even if manifest as rap or hip-hop in film and pop music—is a reflection of his deep commitment to his priceless inheritance.
The trouble with—or rather the value of—Sriram Parasuram is that his accomplishments in music are wider than most musicians can only dream of, even if they have the breadth of vision to look beyond their own area of specialisation. Both heredity and environment must have played equal parts in the evolution of this multifaceted artist who straddles the musical universe with expertise in several genres—both vocal and violin, Carnatic and Hindustani—and more than passable skill in western classical, jazz, sufi, folk and film music.
With an MBA from IIM-C—following his mechanical engineering degree from Bombay University—and a PhD in world music from the Wesleyan University, Connecticut, USA, Sriram built a superstructure of amazing variety on his upbringing in a typically academically inclined Tamil household in Mumbai also steeped in south Indian classical music.
Many have been the deeply satisfying concerts in which Sriram’s empathetic, bhava-soaked bowing has enhanced the music of lead musicians such as his guru, flautist Tanjavur Viswanathan, contemporary instrumentalist Chitravina Ravikiran or veteran vocalists like RK Srikantan and Nedunuri Krishnamurti. On such occasions, you are transported to another, exalted zone, by a man you are convinced was born to play the violin, and wish he would go deeper still into the realm of Carnatic music with his instrument. But then you listen to a lecture-demonstration by him—along with Hindustani vocalist Suhas Vyas—on south Indian ragas in Hindustani music; a musical tribute to the genius of Subbarama Dikshitar who codified a sizable treasury of Carnatic compositions in his Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini of 1904; his presentation of Kabir’s poetry with folk singer Prahlad Singh Tippanya; or his popular TV programme Ellame Sangeetam Taan (It’s All Music), partnered by his wife and well known film singer Anuradha Sriram, in which he switches effortlessly in his role of vocalist from Carnatic alapana and compositions to Hindustani music, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan songs, ghazals and Hindi film songs, and you know that it is impossible to tie such a versatile talent down to one form or branch of music.
Like such famous south Indians before him as A Kanan and N Rajam (Hindustani classical), today's stars Hariharan and Shankar Mahadevan (Hindi film and popular music), and a few others, Sriram Parasuram has mastered an idiom outside his own natural legacy. Learning Hindustani vocal music from the late Pt. CR Vyas, he has reached the level of accomplishment of a ‘native’ practitioner. The difference is that Sriram is of concert level proficiency in both systems. Perhaps the only parallel to this feat of equal mastery in Carnatic and Hindustani music is the case of violinist MS Gopalakrishnan of the celebrated Parur school.
Sriram has collaborated with musicians from different cultures. Javanese Gamelan, West African drumming, and Japanese Koto are some examples of exotica he has played or sung along with. Born in a musically gifted family he partnered his brothers Viswanath and Narayan (Three Brothers and a Violin) and composed the music for an award winning Hindi pop album "Savariya". With his wife, he directed the music for the Tamil film Five Star and produced a Tamil pop album Chennai Girl. He has been awarded the President’s gold medal for Carnatic and Hindustani music.
What impresses you most about Sriram and Anuradha, even more than their versatility—she too is proficient in numerous styles of music including classical—is their firm belief that ellame sangeetam taan. Sriram can render a perfect alap and bandish, follow it without an interval with a complex ragam-tanam-pallavi and finish with a romantic film song, all in one afternoon, with not a trace of one form in another. There are no obvious prejudices, no condescension towards any music of the world, be it classical, folk or film music, bhakti or secular, vocal or instrumental.
Extremely comfortable with technology, Sriram is in touch with the latest trends in world music and appreciates the beauty of Indian film music with its absorption of the best from a variety of sources, its use of orchestration to embellish Indian melodies, its ability to draw the bhava of the music most effectively. For one so contemporary in his attitude to music, Sriram is also a traditionalist when it comes to the core values of classical music. His respect for his own gurus and the past masters of Indian classical music borders on the reverential, and this lends a poignant touch to his lecture demonstrations. His assertion that all Indian music is based on ragas—even if manifest as rap or hip-hop in film and pop music—is a reflection of his deep commitment to his priceless inheritance.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Blessed by Hanuman
The Natyarangam award could not have gone to a more worthy artist. For decades during the unforgettable Rukmini Devi era, Balagopalan was one of the star performers at the annual Kalakshetra art festival. From his teen years to age sixty, when he retired, he remained the enthusiastic, completely devoted dancer, springing with the sprightly vigour that made him an early favourite of the grande dame of that pathbreaking institution.
Looking at the septuagenarian today, his back straight, and his expressive face still bright with the intensity of devotion to his art, the mind travels back to a time when he electrified the Kalakshetra stage with his dynamic presence.
One particular episode will always remain in the memories of those who watched a poignant scene unfold before them—for once the drama was as much on stage as off it.
It is a dramatic moment in the Ramayana. A forlorn Sita is sitting under a tree and bemoaning her fate when a sprightly Hanuman jumps down from a tree and surprises her into open-mouthed wonder.
Even as the audience waits with bated breath, for it knows what power and artistry the dancer playing the monkey-god is capable of, the curtains have to be brought down hurriedly, as he has evidently twisted his ankle rather nastily.
It is, indeed, a bad injury and the foot swells like a balloon. A doctor in the audience happens to have just the right medical supplies in hand, and soon Balagopalan is administered an injection that numbs the injured area, and he is able to resume dancing as if nothing has happened.
What followed this little drama two decades ago was a memorable performance by the veteran dancer-teacher.
Playing Hanuman was a matter of devotion and surrender. Balagopalan simply left the matter in the hands of that indefatigable soldier. He believes that Lord Anjaneya's benediction saw him through not only that evening, but his whole life.
"Every year during the art festival, I would lead the most ascetic life, eating sparsely, doing puja and generally denying myself the creature comforts. That particular year, I had been a bit lax and I'm convinced that was the reason why I met with that accident," Balan Anna, as he is known to everyone in Kalakshetra, said.
“My fortunes changed dramatically when I started playing Hanuman,” he acknowledges. “It was no doubt Anjaneya’s grace that led to so many people generously helping me with my retirement and plans to start my own dance school.”
To those who have seen the Kalakshetra ‘Ramayana', Balagopalan is synonymous with Anjaneya. “I don't know how Athai saw a giant in me,” the diminutive Balagopal says recalling the inspired decision to first cast him as Hanuman, “but each time I took the viswarupam, I found a current coursing through my whole being. I didn't see my fellow artist, I saw Lord Rama. When I conveyed Rama's message to the imprisoned Sita, my frenzy of rage and grief was no drama, but reality.”
Balan Anna is more than a brilliant impersonator of Hanuman. His Lakshmana in the early years to Dhananjayan's Rama is still talked about in awed whispers. His Bharata to Janardhanan's Rama is equally famous. His interpretation of the devout younger brother in "Paduka Pattabhishekam" has never been bettered on stage or screen. (Balan is still hankering after a photograph hanging in Janardhanan’s house—of Rama and Bharata hugging each other. “What expressions we have on our faces! What filial love!” he marvels).
Comedy, villainy, pathos, bhakti—nothing escaped his attention, as his brilliant performances as Ravana, or in a comic role in "Sakuntalam" or as Kannappar in "Kannappar Kuravanji", testify. And what role has Balagopalan not played to perfection? His portrayal of Krishna in "Rukmini Kalyanam" would make you forget his short stature and even push back the years and accept him totally as the youthful, mischievous cowherd of Brindavan. He was equally convincing as the wily Sakuni in "Mahabharata". For not only was he adept at the footwork necessary for Bharatanatyam and honed by his Kathakali training, but he was also acclaimed for his mobile and appropriate facial expressions.
The result of rigorous training as a student of Kalakshetra where he arrived in 1953 as a 13-year old, these attributes make him the most versatile actor among dancers. An early star cast had Kunhiraman as Viswamitra, Chandu Panikkar as Vasishta, Dhananjayan as Rama and Balagopalan as Lakshmana, and the honest self-critic that he is, Balagopalan admits his inability to equal Kunhiraman’s standout Viswamitra in later years.
Dhananjayan and Balagopalan were inseparable friends as kids. They enjoyed the good times together and mourned the so-called bad times—when slights real or imagined at the hands of their peers and elders had them embrace each others in tears. Balan regrets his lack of attention to studies, though he recalls his football exploits at school with pride.
Balagopalan remembers his former colleagues with great affection and admiration. “What a brilliant dancer Janardhanan was. Can there ever be another Krishnaveni? None of us thought of lead or side roles. We just did what Athai wanted, though there was always healthy competition between us.”
His mother died in Kerala while young Balan was away performing dance dramas in New Delhi. He recalls emotionally, “Rukmini Devi died with her head on my lap. She said she must have been my child in a previous birth, or I hers, for me to nurse her so devotedly now.”
Balagopalan retired from Kalakshetra at 60, ten years ago. In Rukmini Devi's time, his career might have just begun, for that indefatigable collector of great masters made sure Kalakshetra benefited from the wisdom and experience of the best music and dance composers and teachers.
Armed with his monthly pension of Rs. 265 and a fund of goodwill from many former students, fans and patrons of Kalakshetra, Balagopal quietly embarked on his new life as teacher at his home, where students come to him for lessons.
Heart disease and surgery have made Balagopalan wistful for the good old days when he could crouch like a tiger, spring like a lion. “Nowadays, I become breathless even while demonstrating to my students”, now reduced to twenty-odd from about sixty in healthier days. He needs daughter-dancer Prithvija’s help to conduct his classes, but his spirit is undaunted as can be seen from his superb expressiveness in abhinaya. The lion in winter has much to offer still—for those willing to benefit from his accumulated wisdom, the product of his unparalleled experience.
Looking at the septuagenarian today, his back straight, and his expressive face still bright with the intensity of devotion to his art, the mind travels back to a time when he electrified the Kalakshetra stage with his dynamic presence.
One particular episode will always remain in the memories of those who watched a poignant scene unfold before them—for once the drama was as much on stage as off it.
It is a dramatic moment in the Ramayana. A forlorn Sita is sitting under a tree and bemoaning her fate when a sprightly Hanuman jumps down from a tree and surprises her into open-mouthed wonder.
Even as the audience waits with bated breath, for it knows what power and artistry the dancer playing the monkey-god is capable of, the curtains have to be brought down hurriedly, as he has evidently twisted his ankle rather nastily.
It is, indeed, a bad injury and the foot swells like a balloon. A doctor in the audience happens to have just the right medical supplies in hand, and soon Balagopalan is administered an injection that numbs the injured area, and he is able to resume dancing as if nothing has happened.
What followed this little drama two decades ago was a memorable performance by the veteran dancer-teacher.
Playing Hanuman was a matter of devotion and surrender. Balagopalan simply left the matter in the hands of that indefatigable soldier. He believes that Lord Anjaneya's benediction saw him through not only that evening, but his whole life.
"Every year during the art festival, I would lead the most ascetic life, eating sparsely, doing puja and generally denying myself the creature comforts. That particular year, I had been a bit lax and I'm convinced that was the reason why I met with that accident," Balan Anna, as he is known to everyone in Kalakshetra, said.
“My fortunes changed dramatically when I started playing Hanuman,” he acknowledges. “It was no doubt Anjaneya’s grace that led to so many people generously helping me with my retirement and plans to start my own dance school.”
To those who have seen the Kalakshetra ‘Ramayana', Balagopalan is synonymous with Anjaneya. “I don't know how Athai saw a giant in me,” the diminutive Balagopal says recalling the inspired decision to first cast him as Hanuman, “but each time I took the viswarupam, I found a current coursing through my whole being. I didn't see my fellow artist, I saw Lord Rama. When I conveyed Rama's message to the imprisoned Sita, my frenzy of rage and grief was no drama, but reality.”
Balan Anna is more than a brilliant impersonator of Hanuman. His Lakshmana in the early years to Dhananjayan's Rama is still talked about in awed whispers. His Bharata to Janardhanan's Rama is equally famous. His interpretation of the devout younger brother in "Paduka Pattabhishekam" has never been bettered on stage or screen. (Balan is still hankering after a photograph hanging in Janardhanan’s house—of Rama and Bharata hugging each other. “What expressions we have on our faces! What filial love!” he marvels).
Comedy, villainy, pathos, bhakti—nothing escaped his attention, as his brilliant performances as Ravana, or in a comic role in "Sakuntalam" or as Kannappar in "Kannappar Kuravanji", testify. And what role has Balagopalan not played to perfection? His portrayal of Krishna in "Rukmini Kalyanam" would make you forget his short stature and even push back the years and accept him totally as the youthful, mischievous cowherd of Brindavan. He was equally convincing as the wily Sakuni in "Mahabharata". For not only was he adept at the footwork necessary for Bharatanatyam and honed by his Kathakali training, but he was also acclaimed for his mobile and appropriate facial expressions.
The result of rigorous training as a student of Kalakshetra where he arrived in 1953 as a 13-year old, these attributes make him the most versatile actor among dancers. An early star cast had Kunhiraman as Viswamitra, Chandu Panikkar as Vasishta, Dhananjayan as Rama and Balagopalan as Lakshmana, and the honest self-critic that he is, Balagopalan admits his inability to equal Kunhiraman’s standout Viswamitra in later years.
Dhananjayan and Balagopalan were inseparable friends as kids. They enjoyed the good times together and mourned the so-called bad times—when slights real or imagined at the hands of their peers and elders had them embrace each others in tears. Balan regrets his lack of attention to studies, though he recalls his football exploits at school with pride.
Balagopalan remembers his former colleagues with great affection and admiration. “What a brilliant dancer Janardhanan was. Can there ever be another Krishnaveni? None of us thought of lead or side roles. We just did what Athai wanted, though there was always healthy competition between us.”
His mother died in Kerala while young Balan was away performing dance dramas in New Delhi. He recalls emotionally, “Rukmini Devi died with her head on my lap. She said she must have been my child in a previous birth, or I hers, for me to nurse her so devotedly now.”
Balagopalan retired from Kalakshetra at 60, ten years ago. In Rukmini Devi's time, his career might have just begun, for that indefatigable collector of great masters made sure Kalakshetra benefited from the wisdom and experience of the best music and dance composers and teachers.
Armed with his monthly pension of Rs. 265 and a fund of goodwill from many former students, fans and patrons of Kalakshetra, Balagopal quietly embarked on his new life as teacher at his home, where students come to him for lessons.
Heart disease and surgery have made Balagopalan wistful for the good old days when he could crouch like a tiger, spring like a lion. “Nowadays, I become breathless even while demonstrating to my students”, now reduced to twenty-odd from about sixty in healthier days. He needs daughter-dancer Prithvija’s help to conduct his classes, but his spirit is undaunted as can be seen from his superb expressiveness in abhinaya. The lion in winter has much to offer still—for those willing to benefit from his accumulated wisdom, the product of his unparalleled experience.
Monday, October 4, 2010
From the Sruti archives 1
Issue 2 November 1983
A Dancer And Her Quest For Peace
Usha Narayanan is an unusual dancer. Her dance is inspired and informed by Arayar Sevai, a unique type of ritualistic worship in some vaishnavite temples. She didn’t start out this way. In fact, although she showed talent in dancing and singing even as a child, she never nursed ambitions of becoming a serious performer. There was much music in her mother’s family, and interest in music and dance, and coaching in both, continued for Usha through school, but she rarely went to recitals, as she lived mostly in cantonments and military quarters, far from the city, a consequence of her father’s job in Defence Accounts.
Usha married at the young age of seventeen and her lessons in dance and music continued. “Because I enjoyed dance and music I took my lessons seriously as I had earlier, but no thoughts of a career in dance crossed my mind. I learnt music from Sri L.T. Raghavachari who was a very sincere teacher.”
Great misfortune befell Usha who lost two of her three children under tragic circumstances. Shock and grief overrwhelmed her and she was filled with a deep need to obtain answers to basic questions pertaining to life and death. Self-realisation and a need ta come to terms with life became imperative. “But I was still in a state of shock and didn’t know what to do,” she told us. “That is when my husband advised me to take up dancing seriosly. After all dance is a kind of yoga or therapy.”
Usha then learnt bharatanatyam from Nana Kasar, a disciple of Parvati Kumar whose guru was Chockalingam Pillai. She received a scholarship (to learn bharatanatyam) and, after five years of rigorous training, became a performing artiste. “But all the time I used to tell my guru that I was in search of answers to my questions,” she told us. “That quest made me read all the books available on our dance.”
Usha wanted to discover whether dance was the means to an end or an end in itself. She learnt that, according to the sastras, devotion to the supreme is the final goal and dance is a means to achieve this final goal, although one can also dance for one’s own pleasure and one’s own satisfaction; but when one does that, it amounts to going inward rather than opening out.
Usha then tried to depict the emotion of bhakti in the traditional bharatanatyam mode and was yet deeply unsatisfied. To her it seemed everything—karma, the cycle of birth and rebirth, sin—was portrayed as dukkha or unhappiness. There was something missing. “How do you show antaryamitvam (God’s omnipresence)?” Bharatanatyam did not provide the answer. “I found I was doing injustice to dancing. I was not satisfied. A page from the Natyasastra seemed to be missing”.
Once again Mr. Narayanan showed the way. He suggested that Usha make a study of the ritual of Divya Prabandham sung in temples. She took his advice and what followed made all the difference. Watching the Arayars was, a mystical experience; she watched them dance and it cleared so many of her doubts. Divya prabandham was the answer, the dance in the temple was the answer She was filled with peace: She said to herself: “Now my life is complete. Today if I have to leave this place, I have no attachment to anything material!”
When we asked Usha what was the difference between bharatanatyam and Arayar Sevai, she explained it by illustrating it with one of her own experiences. “At the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, I was asked to do both bhartanatyam and Arayar Sevai. I entered the stage and first performed Arayar Sevai, the truly devotional part of my dance, I concentrated hard and the audience watched in rapt attention. Then I followed it with bharatanatyam which I did effortlessly. I slipped from the higher worship to the lower, secular dance. But in another programme I did the reverse, performing bharatanatyam first. When I tried to follow with Sevai, I suffocated. I couldn’t reach that higher plane. I realised Arayar Sevai is a direct communion with God; you forget your surroundings.”
Usha has made a keen study of the tradition of Arayar Sevai and she is continuing it. The Arayars usually do not easily part with their knowledge but have shared much with Usha because of her great devotion and piety. In the opinion of some, she has brought out into light an unknown form of ritualistic worship and is developing it into an art form. She has collected enough material to write a research paper, which she has in fact done, but she has not submitted it to any university. Once Sangeet Natak Akademi offered her a fellowship to carry out documentation work in this area but Usha lost interest when she was asked to obtain certification from the Arayars themselves that she was taught the art by them.
Will she teach anyone who is willing to learn Arayar Sevai from her? Usha’s reply to this question underscores her philosophy, her whole approach to dance. “I will, if the student comes to me in the true spirit of devotion and wants to learn this dance for the same reasons as I did. Not to make a career of it, but for reasons of bhakti. I will be only too happy to pass on my knowledge to anybody who has the same atitude as I have.”
V. Ramnarayan with
S. Muthumeenakshi
A Dancer And Her Quest For Peace
Usha Narayanan is an unusual dancer. Her dance is inspired and informed by Arayar Sevai, a unique type of ritualistic worship in some vaishnavite temples. She didn’t start out this way. In fact, although she showed talent in dancing and singing even as a child, she never nursed ambitions of becoming a serious performer. There was much music in her mother’s family, and interest in music and dance, and coaching in both, continued for Usha through school, but she rarely went to recitals, as she lived mostly in cantonments and military quarters, far from the city, a consequence of her father’s job in Defence Accounts.
Usha married at the young age of seventeen and her lessons in dance and music continued. “Because I enjoyed dance and music I took my lessons seriously as I had earlier, but no thoughts of a career in dance crossed my mind. I learnt music from Sri L.T. Raghavachari who was a very sincere teacher.”
Great misfortune befell Usha who lost two of her three children under tragic circumstances. Shock and grief overrwhelmed her and she was filled with a deep need to obtain answers to basic questions pertaining to life and death. Self-realisation and a need ta come to terms with life became imperative. “But I was still in a state of shock and didn’t know what to do,” she told us. “That is when my husband advised me to take up dancing seriosly. After all dance is a kind of yoga or therapy.”
Usha then learnt bharatanatyam from Nana Kasar, a disciple of Parvati Kumar whose guru was Chockalingam Pillai. She received a scholarship (to learn bharatanatyam) and, after five years of rigorous training, became a performing artiste. “But all the time I used to tell my guru that I was in search of answers to my questions,” she told us. “That quest made me read all the books available on our dance.”
Usha wanted to discover whether dance was the means to an end or an end in itself. She learnt that, according to the sastras, devotion to the supreme is the final goal and dance is a means to achieve this final goal, although one can also dance for one’s own pleasure and one’s own satisfaction; but when one does that, it amounts to going inward rather than opening out.
Usha then tried to depict the emotion of bhakti in the traditional bharatanatyam mode and was yet deeply unsatisfied. To her it seemed everything—karma, the cycle of birth and rebirth, sin—was portrayed as dukkha or unhappiness. There was something missing. “How do you show antaryamitvam (God’s omnipresence)?” Bharatanatyam did not provide the answer. “I found I was doing injustice to dancing. I was not satisfied. A page from the Natyasastra seemed to be missing”.
Once again Mr. Narayanan showed the way. He suggested that Usha make a study of the ritual of Divya Prabandham sung in temples. She took his advice and what followed made all the difference. Watching the Arayars was, a mystical experience; she watched them dance and it cleared so many of her doubts. Divya prabandham was the answer, the dance in the temple was the answer She was filled with peace: She said to herself: “Now my life is complete. Today if I have to leave this place, I have no attachment to anything material!”
When we asked Usha what was the difference between bharatanatyam and Arayar Sevai, she explained it by illustrating it with one of her own experiences. “At the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, I was asked to do both bhartanatyam and Arayar Sevai. I entered the stage and first performed Arayar Sevai, the truly devotional part of my dance, I concentrated hard and the audience watched in rapt attention. Then I followed it with bharatanatyam which I did effortlessly. I slipped from the higher worship to the lower, secular dance. But in another programme I did the reverse, performing bharatanatyam first. When I tried to follow with Sevai, I suffocated. I couldn’t reach that higher plane. I realised Arayar Sevai is a direct communion with God; you forget your surroundings.”
Usha has made a keen study of the tradition of Arayar Sevai and she is continuing it. The Arayars usually do not easily part with their knowledge but have shared much with Usha because of her great devotion and piety. In the opinion of some, she has brought out into light an unknown form of ritualistic worship and is developing it into an art form. She has collected enough material to write a research paper, which she has in fact done, but she has not submitted it to any university. Once Sangeet Natak Akademi offered her a fellowship to carry out documentation work in this area but Usha lost interest when she was asked to obtain certification from the Arayars themselves that she was taught the art by them.
Will she teach anyone who is willing to learn Arayar Sevai from her? Usha’s reply to this question underscores her philosophy, her whole approach to dance. “I will, if the student comes to me in the true spirit of devotion and wants to learn this dance for the same reasons as I did. Not to make a career of it, but for reasons of bhakti. I will be only too happy to pass on my knowledge to anybody who has the same atitude as I have.”
V. Ramnarayan with
S. Muthumeenakshi
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Taking music to the young
First published in The Bengal Post
“I’m coming back from a long walk. I went to the temple after years. You know me, I rarely do,” the leading Carnatic vocalist said. He had left a concert halfway to do that. He had gone to pray for the future of Carnatic music, he said, appalled by the vocal atrocities perpetrated by the gifted young performer of the evening. “What shocked me was that people who should know better, musicians and rasikas alike, were obviously enjoying this insult to classical music,” he explained.
In his jeans and tee shirt, slim, youthful TM Krishna hardly looked the part, but he is among the strongest champions of tradition in his art. And he is outspoken about it, sometimes needlessly so, his well wishers feel. In matters concerning music, he tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, though he is also a cerebral musician with a penchant for research into the history and grammar of Carnatic music. For someone still in his thirties, Krishna is quite a veteran on the concert stage, a star, to go by his constantly growing fan following.
Krishna has used his star status to propagate the core values he believes in, for example, refusing to heed requests from audiences overseas for lighter pieces even if those were made popular by the stalwarts of yesteryear. Yet, within the confines of tradition, he does every now and then shock his audience by charting some unorthodox paths in concert rendition. And woe betide the critic who dare fault his approach, for Krishna can demolish such criticism quoting chapter and verse.
For someone with such strong views on the undesirability of tinkering with tradition, Krishna is acutely conscious of the need to take Carnatic music far and wide, to build a future constituency of listeners. Along with another stellar exponent of south Indian classical music, Bombay Jayashri (40), he has forged an unusual but effective team that has achieved remarkable progress in this objective.
Jayashri is a top ranking classical vocalist, with an unusual past—she started as a participant in college culturals and a singer of advertising jingles in Bombay—which explains the prefix to her name, an old Carnatic music convention. She kept honing her classical music skills alongside, until she moved to Chennai, came under the tutelage of violin maestro Lalgudi Jayaraman, and eventually made it big with her reverberant voice. Like Krishna, she too has a mind of her own, and treads an independent path, deliberately restricting her appearances in the Chennai concert circuit, for instance. Her interviews with the media can spring some unexpected gems. Example, her confession that she listens to Mehdi Hasan, Asha Bhonsle or Mohammad Rafi more often than the old masters of Carnatic music, or that her bhakti is to her music rather than the god she sings of.
One of the ventures in which the two have come together, Svanubhava, is in its third year, and growing every year. It is a three-day annual extravaganza of concerts, lec-dems, quizzes and workshops for students, conducted at a number of venues, including schools and colleges, where the participation has been extremely encouraging, and the level of discourse of a high order. The programme also attempts to bring practitioners of different performing arts on to a common platform. This year folk, theatre and cinema artists joined classical musicians and dancers.
Remarkably, Krishna and Jayashri have both attracted listeners from outside the usual Carnatic music circles, both in India and abroad. While Jayashri has occasionally taken part in experiments with Hindustani musicians, Krishna has stuck to the medium he knows best, insisting that the audience must accept his music in its authentic form. With Margazhi Ragam, a full-length movie of a Carnatic music concert released last year, they helped director Jayendra create a new art form, achieving a quality of acoustics and stage aesthetics hitherto unattained in the field.
Given their relative youth, they both seem headed for greatness in the decades to come.
“I’m coming back from a long walk. I went to the temple after years. You know me, I rarely do,” the leading Carnatic vocalist said. He had left a concert halfway to do that. He had gone to pray for the future of Carnatic music, he said, appalled by the vocal atrocities perpetrated by the gifted young performer of the evening. “What shocked me was that people who should know better, musicians and rasikas alike, were obviously enjoying this insult to classical music,” he explained.
In his jeans and tee shirt, slim, youthful TM Krishna hardly looked the part, but he is among the strongest champions of tradition in his art. And he is outspoken about it, sometimes needlessly so, his well wishers feel. In matters concerning music, he tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, though he is also a cerebral musician with a penchant for research into the history and grammar of Carnatic music. For someone still in his thirties, Krishna is quite a veteran on the concert stage, a star, to go by his constantly growing fan following.
Krishna has used his star status to propagate the core values he believes in, for example, refusing to heed requests from audiences overseas for lighter pieces even if those were made popular by the stalwarts of yesteryear. Yet, within the confines of tradition, he does every now and then shock his audience by charting some unorthodox paths in concert rendition. And woe betide the critic who dare fault his approach, for Krishna can demolish such criticism quoting chapter and verse.
For someone with such strong views on the undesirability of tinkering with tradition, Krishna is acutely conscious of the need to take Carnatic music far and wide, to build a future constituency of listeners. Along with another stellar exponent of south Indian classical music, Bombay Jayashri (40), he has forged an unusual but effective team that has achieved remarkable progress in this objective.
Jayashri is a top ranking classical vocalist, with an unusual past—she started as a participant in college culturals and a singer of advertising jingles in Bombay—which explains the prefix to her name, an old Carnatic music convention. She kept honing her classical music skills alongside, until she moved to Chennai, came under the tutelage of violin maestro Lalgudi Jayaraman, and eventually made it big with her reverberant voice. Like Krishna, she too has a mind of her own, and treads an independent path, deliberately restricting her appearances in the Chennai concert circuit, for instance. Her interviews with the media can spring some unexpected gems. Example, her confession that she listens to Mehdi Hasan, Asha Bhonsle or Mohammad Rafi more often than the old masters of Carnatic music, or that her bhakti is to her music rather than the god she sings of.
One of the ventures in which the two have come together, Svanubhava, is in its third year, and growing every year. It is a three-day annual extravaganza of concerts, lec-dems, quizzes and workshops for students, conducted at a number of venues, including schools and colleges, where the participation has been extremely encouraging, and the level of discourse of a high order. The programme also attempts to bring practitioners of different performing arts on to a common platform. This year folk, theatre and cinema artists joined classical musicians and dancers.
Remarkably, Krishna and Jayashri have both attracted listeners from outside the usual Carnatic music circles, both in India and abroad. While Jayashri has occasionally taken part in experiments with Hindustani musicians, Krishna has stuck to the medium he knows best, insisting that the audience must accept his music in its authentic form. With Margazhi Ragam, a full-length movie of a Carnatic music concert released last year, they helped director Jayendra create a new art form, achieving a quality of acoustics and stage aesthetics hitherto unattained in the field.
Given their relative youth, they both seem headed for greatness in the decades to come.
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