They are young, ambitious, committed, balancing corporate and musical worlds with great panache and ease. It is of great significance to see that their decisions are taken seriously and backed my family members especially, their mothers, which is a common discovery amongst all the artists.
Each of them is already an achiever in their own right. They have won recognition and acclaim, awards and have audiences and fans all over the country and sometimes even beyond. They use music and technology to connect to their audiences, they have their own websites, music galleries and albums, they blog and some of them are on social media like FaceBook and LinkedIn, too. They are responsible musicians as they travel, perform and take the musical experience far, wide and deep into the listener’s heart and soul.
The youth icons as we choose to call them bear a great sense of achievement at this young age because they carry forward the essence of the great classical music tradition, creating awareness and disseminating music amongst new generation audiences, uniting diverse cultures and peoples with the common unifying force of music.
Ananya brings together a special series called, The Youth Icons of Carnatic Music in India to showcase all our young achievers as they become torch bearers of a new phenomenon and engendering a new type of musical experience. Ananya wishes them lots of luck and good wishes in building their musical experiences.
This series is conceived and brought to you by Aparna S and Dr Ananya Raghavendra, who bring you close to the next generation musicians of today as they take the giant musical legacies forward, in a memorable and inspiring way. Youth Icons of Carnatic Music in India is a series that will feature the successful, established and upcoming artists in the forthcoming issues.
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ROOPA AND DEEPA KASARAVALLI
“Music is a beautiful sound…its experience stays in your memory forever, a long lasting feeling lingering life long…such is the power of music…” echoes the dual soft voice of the Kasaravalli sisters as they share their musical journey with me.
Roopa and Deepa Kasaravalli have made a mark in the Carnatic music field having dedicated years of practice, passion and commitment. Their success today, musical tours and concerts, performances and albums take them back over a decade and half ago when they started learning music seriously.
The twins have practiced and performed together since the age of six when their mother first initiated them into music. Today, they are A Grade artists with AIR, they have 18 – 19 musical albums to their credit, they are invited across the world to tour and perform and are regularly performing for TV audiences too. Their earlier teachers include K G Ramaswamy and Seethalakshmi Venkateshan.
They have learned from various masters and owe their achievements to all the training and guidance from them especially the maestro, Lalgudi Jayaraman. They recall fondly on the two years they spent there as one of the most memorable and formative years in their growth as artists.
Roopa and Deepa have fond memories of this journey which includes having had a golden chance to meet and seek the blessings of Semmangudi Srinvasan and having an opportunity to perform in front of the late Sai Baba, for the Spirit of University Concerts way back in ‘92. They also owe a lot of their learning from watching and listening to the stalwarts, attending concerts and programs at an early age.
The sisters are also deeply connected to each other having performed and practiced over the years. Their understanding and commitment to music is similar and they have some great plans for their musical future.
Roopa and Deepa agree with me that organizations like Ananya play a significant role in creating and providing a platform for upcoming and new artists. This is a platform not just for the veterans but also for the upcoming performers and hence Ananya is playing a critical role in laying the foundation for the future.
Their message to upcoming artists is that this generation is better equipped with technology that can allow them access to music and musicians, they can make good use of these facilities and contribute in a faster and larger way to the cause of music growth and promotion.
One of their plans for their future includes focusing on unpopular kritis / compositions and render them in popular ragas. They say that out of over 1500 compositions only 300 – 400 are regularly sung. By doing this, they can ensure that these rare treasures reach the audiences across the globe.
Two generations played destined games to see them as full-fledged artists today. Their grandmother who wanted them to be singers, their mother who worked very hard and was largely responsible for initiating them into music. The lovely ladies have brought it to listeners with great passion and dedication.
Ananya wishes the lovely ladies a great and successful musical future. Write back to tejaswinis@gmail.com to reach Roopa and Deepa.
AMRITA VENKATESH
Amrita brings the formal air that is normally associated with classical music down to an earth shaking simplicity and loveliness when she says, “I love music, I love singing and don’t want to stop because it’s wonderful.” Her words ring melody to my ears as I hear her out on her experiences and her plans for her future.
Amrita is a classical vocalist and also plays the Veena. She gives out classical vocal concerts and plays the Veena for the radio. In contemporary lingua, one can call her a full time musician. Amrita dedicates her full time and her passion is for music but this artist is also a B.Sc gold medallist having received over 9 gold medals in her academic stint. But she gave it up and any other plans to pursue music at a very young age.
This young lady started learning music at a tender 2 and a half years and seriously started learning when she was 4 from M T Suryanarayana and Charumathy Ramachandran when she was 9. of course, all this under the tremendous support of her family especially her mother.
“Learning is an important element of music and one has to continuously learn else one may endanger one’s growth by becoming stagnated,” she quips. Amrita is currently training under Prince Rama Verma.
Amrita is just 23 years old and started giving concerts from 1996 when she was just 7 years. She recalls fondly that she was uninhibited and fearless and this also earned a lot of backing and encouragement from senior artists then.
Amrita says in our society the role of organizations like Ananya becomes critical. It provides a platform for artists and also takes culture ahead and young and upcoming artists need forums like these to launch and develop as artists.
“ It is good to keep listening to other artists as one can observe and learn from other singers and veterans.” She agrees that it’s challenging and not easy to make a mark in the field. Merit counts and one has to keep learning. If you are a good artists, audiences will come, the young lady says with wisdom. Its also important to learn music for the sake of music and not to win a competition.
Amrita continues to soak in music, as we wind up our conversation. Ananya wishes Amrita a great and successful musical future. Write back to tejaswinis@gmail.com to reach Amrita Venkatesh.
MANASI PRASAD
It is delightful to pen down Manasi’s achievements at this age. This artist is successful, having an extraordinary dedication to the promotion and development of music; she’s drawing a fine balance between her commitments as a singer and as a full time professional. She’s young but not new to awards, recognition and acclaim, her deep satisfaction comes not from the various standing ovations she’s received after a full concert but from a listener whose life she has touched forever with music and emotion.
Manasi Prasad performed her first concert at 14 and has been fortunate to learn from stalwarts like R K Padmanabha, who she says has played a key role in shaping her music journey. Her mother is a musician and Manasi grew up being influenced by an environment dedicated to music at a very early age. Its interesting to note that she has traveled across the globe performing at concerts, music festivals and so on since her days as an Engineering student in BMS College. She went to pursue a full time MBA at the prestigious IIM-B but neither the passion nor the dedication to music diminished or changed.
Manasi believes in the growth, promotion and preservation of music. She has developed various innovative concepts from the treasure trove of music and represented them in multi formats, one popular rendition being ‘Giridhar Meera’ and ‘Olave Jeevana Sakshathkara’. She also recently presented a series on women composers, exclusively. These have been well received by audiences across and she says with conviction that audiences, without any inhibitions, will accept any new and good concept.
After stints in USA with Goldman Sachs and a Bank, Manasi now works with the Brigade Group, a corporate career but not without music. She’s working with the group to set up an interactive music museum, a very interesting project and she tries to balance these worlds as much as possible. Commendable, one would say.
“Music is an expression of emotion, cannot imagine a life without music, and music is what defines me and what I want to always be doing…” Manasi says.
Organizations like Ananya work towards the preservation and promotion of art, educating people and providing platforms for the young and upcoming artists. These are also great places for network and collaboration amongst the music fraternity.
She believes that there is a positive upturn in the society and more and more youngsters are becoming associated with music as audiences. The current generations artists are all innovative dedicated and work a great deal to improver their repertoire.
“Its not easy, it’s been over fifteen long years”. There are a lot of challenges artists face before they take a place in the music universe. “I love to sing instead of worrying about how many concerts I have in hand”, she adds.
Manasi idolizes M S Subbalakshmi and admires Sudha Raghunathan, Nirupama Rajendra and many other stalwarts. Some of her memorable performances include the Aradhana Pallavi, the concert of Olave Jeevana Sakshathkara and Life of Purandara concerts.
While Manasi continues to immerse in her musica journey, we wind up our conversation. Ananya wishes Manasi Prasad a great and successful musical future. Write back to tejaswinis@gmail.com to reach Manasi Prasad.
RAVI KIRAN
Ravi Kiran seems to belong to another world, another realm as I intercept his musical thoughts with this interview. Deep in music, going deeper, exploring and discovering and reveling in it, is where he is most at comfort with. He’s a engineering graduate from the prestigious BITS PILANI and in spite of his corporate career, he found his calling with music years ago and has stayed committed.
Ravi is learning and performing for the last twenty years and started training under R K Srikantan’s son, Ramakanth. For the last seven years, he’s training with T M Krishna. Today, Ravi travels and performs concerts across India and the globe and is busy straddling two worlds. Not that he has the time, but in addition to this, he has a trust of his own, called GURU GRUHAMRUTHA, dedicated to the preservation and propagation of the music of Sri Muthuswamy Dikshitar. This trust means a lot to him since he believes music is not be housed just in a library, music is to be sung and heard.
Ravi’s passion for music along with a friend in his college years at BITS PILANI and there has been no turning back since then. He’s focused on developing and promoting music like his contemporaries. He strongly believes one must increase audiences and awareness for the music of yesteryears masters, rare ragas and so on.
The music scene is Bangalore is very active and crowds are drawn to good music anywhere. Ravi shares a very interesting perspective when he says that one should not give only a technically or academically correct performance but that it must evoke a rasa or an emotion. In this way, he reconnects to the masters of yesteryears and says their sheer magnitude of performance is intimidating. Ravi makes special mention of the great Semmangudi and says that he is his manasika guru and is deeply influenced by him.
Ravi firmly says, “ Do justice to music or else don’t do it”, a conviction that is visible in his efforts and dedication to the cause of music development. He says its wrong to compromise while learning music, go deep and learn it perfectly.
Ravi’s words of advise to upcoming artists is that one should be true to music, render every moment in music authentically, go that extra mile in learning, give it your best, nothing should be incidental…flow in the musical torrent…”
One needs the support of family members to invest all time and efforts in music. He says organizations must not be mere profit centers but must work towards the cause and development of music. They must provide a platform for good music and musicians especially the upcoming ones.
Ravi continues to delve deeper in his favorite Bhairavis, Shankarabharanam and Varahi while I collect my thoughts from this conversation. Ananya wishes Ravi Kiran a great and successful musical future. Write back to tejaswinis@gmail.com to reach Ravi Kiran.