Carnatic music concert at IIT Madras

Smt. Savitha Kartikeyan had training in Carnatic Music from a very young age.  She was first under the tutelage of  Sri. S Kuppasamy (a student of  Sri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and Sri Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar), and then trained under Sangeetha Kalanidhi Sri D K Jayaraman for seven years until his death.  She then learnt from Sangeetha Kala Acharya Sri V Subramaniam (student of Sri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer).  Although Savitha Kartikeyan used to be a regular at YACM (Youth Association for Carnatic Music), she chose to stay out of the performance circuit. She  runs a music centre called Parampara Center (youtube channel: Paramparasishya) for Carnatic Music  at Bengaluru. The centre is about 15 years only,  where she teaches music primarily for children, although she does have students in the range of 7-45.

 

CompMusic learned about Savitha while they were scouting around for music on the web that had only tanpura for accompaniment.  Savitha Kartikeyan has her own youtube channel (savita208) and has uploaded a number of favourites of Sri DKJ.  CompMusic got in touch in with her and she has promptly acceded to our requests for specific recordings. Her diction is superb and renditions are mesmerising.

 

Much of what Savitha is today is thanks to the most wonderful support given by her husband Kartikeyan who is an accomplished flautist and senior disciple of Sangeetha Kalanidhi Dr N Ramani.

 

CompMusic therefore decided to organise a concert by her which will not only be used by the CompMusic project, but will also  enable the general public to also hear and enjoy this wonderful music.

 

Sri. Sridharan Sankaran is a mridangam vidwan and also an IT professional.  He is a Principal Consultant at TCS.  He is a student of Sri Mannargudi Iswaran.  He used to be the asthana percussion vidwan, when he spent 7 years overseas on a TCS assignment at Sydney, Australia, where he accompanied a number of renouned artistes.  Shri Sridharan is a multifaceted personality, in that he also plays the violin (Shri C N Chandra Sekharan was his guru), a great connoiseur of music, runs a club called Gaanapriya, and is incharge of administration of Sangeethapriya.org.  He is currently pursuing his M S (by research) at the CSE Dept. of IIT Madras, Chennai 600036.  Sridharan is known for his soulful and soft accompaniment style with a keen sense of anticipation.  Owing to his training as a violinist, his accompaniment during compositions actually speak the lyrics.

 

Incidentally Smt.Savitha Kartikeyan was accompanied by Sri. Sridharan Sankaran on two occassions about 20 years ago.

 

Sri. Bala Subramanian is a mrudangam and Kanjira artist. He started learning mrudangam at the age of 11 from Thillaisthanam Sri. Suriyanarayanan and was able to quickly develop interest in the instrument due to his frequent exposure to carnatic music. After playing the mrudangam for well over a decade he chose to take up Kanjira as another interest. Self trained in Kanjira, he has accompanied many artists in a number of concerts. He is currently under the tutelage of vidwan Sri. Sridharan Sankaran for advanced training in laya nuances. Being a tech and music enthusiast, Bala Subramanian develops websites and apps mainly related to carnatic music. His most popular development Your Tanpura, a free tanpura software is one of the top Tanpura apps in the internet and is available free of cost for Windows, iOS, Android platforms including a web version in YouTube. Bala Subramanian was awarded the Nipuna Rasika award in 2012 by sangeethapriya.org for his services to their web portal. Recently he and his friend have started an organisation called susvara (susvara.org.in) that aims at promoting classical music and providing a platform for budding performers through chamber concerts. Having worked as the Development Head at a software firm in Chennai, Bala Subramanian is currently a freelance IT consultant.