The seventh couple to be featured in the Parivadini Navaratri Nava Shakti series is TC Karunanidhi and TK Maheshwari. Vidushi Maheshwari, a second generation nagaswaram artiste in her family, first learned from her father, KS Ponnusamy. “After marriage, having to take care of family and raising...
The fourth pair that we are featuring in the Navarathiri Navasakthi is the couple from Chidambaram, Viswanathan – Vijayalakshmi. Vdushi Vijayalakshmi hails from the famous Thiruvarur legacy. Her grandfather TS Meenakshisundaram Pillai had the distinction of serving as the Asthana Vidwan in the...
The third couple to be featured in Parivadini’s Navaratri Nava Shakti series is KS Senthil Murugan and S Shanthi of Tiruvannamalai. Vidushi Shanthi has been learning nagaswaram from six years. She learned the basics from her grandfather Raman and later from her father Kalaimamani TR Pichandi....
Venkatesh and Sankari are the second couple Parivadini is featuring in Navaratri 2021, Nava Shakthi series. These concerts are supported by Srivathsam and inmathi.com. Vidushi Sankari was born in Thirukazhukundram in Kancheepuram. She learned the basics of Nagaswaram playing from her father...
In the Navaratri Navashakti series curated by Parivadini along with ‘Srivathsam’ and Inmathi.com, we feature nine “Nagaswaram Couples”. First in the series is Vid SP Palanivel and Vid R Prabhavathi based out of Bangalore. Prabhavathi hails from Doddapannandahalli village in Kolar district. Her...
At the peak of the SPB-Ilayaraja spat over the copyright issue, Raja’s brother Gangei Amaren hit out at the music director for issuing a legal notice to the singer, and expressed his support to SPB. Amaren went on to describe Ilayaraja’s move as “foolishness”. No doubt, Amaren had already...
In March 2017, when singer SPB was in the US as part of a global tour, he was shocked to receive a legal notice from his friend Ilayaraja for copyright violation, by singing his songs without consent. Ilayaraja’s lawyer said in the notice that Ilayaraja held the copyright of the songs composed...
Playing the mridangam remains largely a male vocation even today, but even before Independence, Thirukkornam T S Ranganayaki Ammal gained fame as an acclaimed mridangam artiste. When M S Subbulakshmi performed on the stage replacing her mother Madurai Shanmugavadivu at the Mysore palace for the...
When the Pavalar Brothers, Ilayaraja, Baskar and Gangei Amaren struggled during their early days in Chennai – no proper place to stay and barely had one meal a day – it was singer S P Balasubrahmanyam who provided them much needed support by including them in his orchestra which performed stage...
Nagasvaram may be the king of instruments in Tamil Nadu. Musically, it has the pride of place in the Carnatic system. It is to the nagasvaram that vocalists turn to for the nuances. Yet, though the Carnatic music “market” has a flock of ‘disciples’ learning vocal, violin, veena or the flute,...
