Sarasvati vina exponents and vocalists

Sreevidhya Chandramouli, a resident of Portland, Oregon since late 80s, majored in music from University of Madras and currently teaches at the University of Oregon at Eugene. She belongs to the illustrious Karaikudi Vina Tradition, the only living tradition from South India with more than ten generations of Vina players. Her performance and teaching career spans over 25 years.

She first learnt music from her mother, Rajeswari Padmanabhan. By continuing the tradition of combining voice and vina in her performances, she lends "extra appeal to the delivery as one can follow the sahitya well instead of groping in the dark when certain songs are played by instrumentalists without either announcements or singing." - G. Swaminathan in The Hindu (28.08.2009)

Sreevidhya later pursued vocal training with Vairamanagalam Lakshminarayanan and also from Smt. Suguna Varadachari.

As a practicing vina melam builder (veena fretting), she has collaborated on a project to make vina and tambura together with Dr. Karaikudi Subramanian, Founder Director of Brhaddhvani (Research & Training center for Musics of the World at Chennai). Along with her husband, Chandramouli Narayanan, she is a founding member of the non-profit organization Dhvani (www.dhvani.org) committed to the Education, Preservation and Dissemination of arts of India.

Recordings and streaming video on the internet

• Online video of her vina recital: live at the Millennium Stage, Kennedy Center, Wash. DC, August 19, 2009
• Video and information presented by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress | pdf printversion (2 pages)
• Music of the Veena II, JVC, CD recording, 1989. (Performed in tandem with mother Rajeswari Padmanbhan and Tanjore Upendran on the Mridangam).
  
• Music of South India, Karaikudi Veena Tradition, Maruta, SonicSoul Acoustics 1998 (Solo Veena performance with Mannargudi Easwaran on the Mridangam). [CD Maruta provided the music background in the documentary ‘Biography of an American Hostess’ by Shilpa Sunthankar]
• Live-broadcast of her music on Dutch radio (streaming audio archive): VPRO de wandelende tak by Walter Slosse (presented together with Ludwig Pesch)

Interview

Her interview on the Sarasvati Vina is available on the website of the South Asian Women’s Forum