Audio | “Dedication to her guru, Veena Dhanammal” by Savithri Rajan

Tips: (1) to automatically play both the sides of the LP-recording, click the play button; (2) to view or download the audio files, item details, liner notes and images, click here; (3) Please be patient if it takes some time to load. – Enjoy! In her private LP recording titled “Dedication to her guru, Veena … Read more

Violin recital at the The Small Theatre (Sittrarangam)

Dwaram Mangathayaru (1937 – 2022) is remembered for embodying a distinguished lineage of Carnatic violinists throughout her long career. Being the daughter and pupil of Sangita Kalanidhi Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu, she already mastered the violin during childhood. A recipient of many awards, Dwaram Mangathayaru is credited by leading performers from diverse backgrounds with unwavering dedication … Read more

Tyagaraja (1767-1847) – Sruti Magazine

The period 1750-1850 was a golden era in world music, when some of the greatest musician-composers lived and enriched the field. In Europe, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schumann and others lived during this period and created the symphony repertoire. It is a significant coincidence that the Carnatic Music trinity—Tyagaraja (1767-1847), Muthuswami Dikshitar (1776-1835) and Syama Sastry … Read more

Up-to-date information: Composers, musicians, scholars, publications and special events

Custom SafeSearch – press and websites For up-to-date information from several leading periodicals and other websites, simply type one or several keywords such as a personal name or institution you want to learn more about (e.g. “carnatic”, “karnatak composer”, “hindustani musician”, “ragamalika”); optionally add a city or state (e.g. “Kumbakonam music”, “Madurai singer”, “Trivandrum music festival”, “Chennai music season”): … Read more

What’s the difference between Hindustani and Carnatic music?

At first, this question seems easy to answer: just watch performers from either strand of Indian music and you’ll know Which is Which, merely going by the instruments in use, or how they dress and watching the body language involved: harmonium or sarangi vs. violin for melodic accompaniment for most vocal recitals, and tabla drums … Read more

A musical tribute to Prof. S. A. Srinivasan by Karaikudi Voyage – Sreevidhya Chandramouli (vocal & vina)

Dr. Srinivasa Ayya Srinivasan, a dear friend of ours, and an Indologist at University of Hamburg, Germany, passed away on May 2nd, 2019. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Pia Srinivasan, who was a student of late Rajeswari Padmanabhan. We pay homage to his great soul with a few of his favorite compositions … Read more

Visualising ragas from many places and even future ones “for the benefit of the people”

In Tanjore as a Seat of Music (pp. 420-426), S. Seetha explains the scope envisaged by Venkatamakhi when presenting his mela arrangement >> Venkatamakhi while justifying the derivation of 72 melakartas by permutation and combination interestingly remarks that countries are many with people having variety of tastes and it is to please them ragas have been … Read more

Gandharva-Sangīta: On the origins of Sangīta (vocal, instrumental, and dance music)

The non-sacrificial, musical counterpart to Sāma-Gāna in ancient times was Gandharva-Sangīta, later Sangīta, which has three divisions; vocal, instrumental, and dance. Performed by “Gandharva” musicians in Indra’s heavenly court, earthly Gandharva-Sangīta was a replica of this celestial music. […] Gandharva-Sangīta was also associated with pūjā, a form of worship with non-Aryan or indigenous roots that … Read more