Kanyakumari — first woman violinist to get Sangita Kalanidhi award

"The executive committee of the Academy held on July 24 has unanimously chosen her for its coveted award," said N. Murali.

July 24, 2016 02:15 pm | Updated July 25, 2016 01:08 am IST - CHENNAI:

A. Kanyakumari, an outstanding and versatile violinist, will get the Sangita Kalanidhi award of the Music Academy this year.

“The executive committee of the Academy held on July 24 has unanimously chosen her for its coveted award,” said N. Murali, president of Academy.

He said Ms. Kanyakumari was the first woman violinist to get the award in the history of the Music Academy and she will preside over the 90th annual conference of the Academy to be held between December 15, 2016 and January 1, 2017. The award will be conferred on her at the Sadas on January 1, 2017.

“It is God's grace that I have been selected for the award at an appropriate time. I am very happy because it is considered as the highest award in the field of carnatic music,” Ms. Kanyakumari, a student of late M.L. Vasanthakumari told The Hindu .

A native of Vijayanagaram in Andhra Pradesh, Ms. Kanyakumari had her initial training under Ivaturi Vijayeswara Rao. Later she learnt from noted violinist M. Chandrasekaran, another Sangita Kalanidhi awardee. In 1971 she became a student of MLV. “I was with her for 19 years learning and accompanying her,” said Ms. Kanyakumari.

She is yet another student of the G.N. Balasubramaniam (GNB) — MLV school of music to win the award. Others who had already received the award are vocalists Sudha Ragunathan and Tiruchur V. Ramachandran.

A composer, who constantly experimented with music, she created seven ragas under the title Saptadri , seven names of Lord Venkateswara of Tirupati. “I used Annamacharya’s compositions to give expression to the seven ragas,” said Ms. Kanyakumari.

Her other raga creations include Mahalakshmi, Tirumurti and Bharat, a raga created on the occasion of the golden jubilee celebrations of Independence.

“I have teamed up with nagaswaram and veena players and my Vadhyalahiri was popular in the late 1980s,” said Ms. Kanyakumari, who had accompanied saxophone player Kadri Gopalnath along with thavil player Haridwaramangalam A.K. Palanivel and tabla maestro Zakir Hussain.

She teaches a lot of students in India and abroad, but does not accept money from them.

Mr. Murali said the Sangita Kala Acharya awards will go to Rudrapatnam brothers — R.N. Thyagarajan and R.N. Tharanathan and K. Venkataramanan, vocalist and music teacher.

TTK awards will be conferred on vocalist Nirmala Sundararajan and Thevaram singer M. Kodilingam. Musicologist award will go to Rama Kausalya and Pappa Venkatramaiah award to violinist Sikkil Baskaran.

The Nataya Kala Acharaya award will be conferred on Malavika Sarukkai on January 3, 2017, at the inauguration of dance festival.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.