Padmabhushan Sangeetha Kalanidhi Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna was an Indian Carnatic vocalist. Born on July 6, 1930 at Sankaraguptam village in Rajolu Taluk in the East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh, he inherited the musical traits of his parents. His father Mangalampalli Pattabhiramayya was a famous flutist and a music teacher, and mother Suryakanthama was a veena artiste. His father put him under the guidance of Parupalli Ramakrishnayya Pantul, with whom he reached the heights of [...]
Chitra Vishweswaran is one of most distinguished and leading Bharatnatyam dancers of India. Chitra’s mother Smt. Rukmini Padmanabhan recognized her talent when she was just three years old. Her father was a Railway Adviser at the Indian High Commission in London. She started taking Classical Ballet lessons in London. She also took training in Manipuri and Kathak, later in Kolkata. Chitra learnt Bharatnatyam from the maestro Smt. T. A. Rajalakshmi for 10 years. She surprised [...]
Carnatic music is an ancient classical music of southern India. History tells that the origin of Carnatic music dates back to 2500 years. Carnatic music is the oldest and the richest form of music in the world whose present form is believed to be based on the historical developments of the 15th-16th centuries and thereafter. The basic form is monophonic with 72 basic scales on the octave with a rich melody. Carnatic music has got [...]
Regarded as one of the best classical musicians India has ever produced, Ustad Bismillah Khan’s name is synonymous with the shehnai in India. This great musician was born on March 21, 1916 at Dumraon in Bihar. He traced his lineage to an illustrious lineage of court musicians in the princely state of Dumraon in Bihar. He trained under the tutelage of his uncle, the late Ali Bux `Vilayatu’, a reputed shehnai player in his own [...]
Bharatnatyam is one of the most sublime of the Indian classical dances. It emerged in Tamil Nadu and among all the Indian classical dances Bharatnatyam is the most ancient. It is considered to be about 2000 years old and it follows the principles of Natya Shastra (the Bible of Indian Classical Dance). In this dance form the dancers make considerable use of hand-and-eye movements to express different emotions. Bharatnatyam is a term derived from the [...]
Amrita Sher-Gill was born on 30 January 1913 in Budapest, Hungary. She was the daughter of Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat and Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, a Hungarian. Her father traced his lineage to a well-known aristocratic family near Amritsar. A renowned scholar of Sanskrit and Persian, he also studied philosophy and religion, besides astronomy, photography and carpentry, and was fluent in many languages. Amrita spent the initial years of her childhood in Europe. [...]
Mrinalini Sadananda is an internationally recognized Kuchipudi dancer, an Indian classical dance. She is also a distinguished teacher and an outstanding choreographer. Mrinalini Sadananda belongs to a family of artists. All her seven brothers and sisters excelled in one art form or another. Her father Vinjamuri Parthasarathy Iyengar was an established lawyer but had keen interest in music and loved violin. Her mother Smt. Kamala Devi was a housewife and an excellent violinist. Mrinalini Sadananda [...]
Described as ‘one of India’s best and most serious contemporary playwrights writing in English’ by Alexander Viets in the International Herald Tribune, Mahesh Dattani is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi award. Born on August 7, 1958, Mahesh Dattani received his early education at Baldwin’s High School and then went on to join St. Joseph’s College of Fine Arts and Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka. Prior to his stint with the world [...]
Legendary Painter M.F Hussain Passes Away India’s most famous modern art painter M.F Hussain passed away in London on Thursday, June 8th 2011. He was 95 years old. It is believed that the legendary painter succumbed to a heart attack in London’s Royal Brompton Hospital. Hussian had been living in self -imposed exile in Dubai and London, after he received threats prior to some of his paintings depicting Hindu deities in the nude. M.F Hussain [...]
Dr. L. Subramaniam is a reputed Tamil violinist,and composer. He has extensive training in Carnatic and Western classical music and made his mark in fusion orchestral music compositions. He was born into a Tamil family of established musicians. His father V.Lakshminarayana and his mother V.Seethalakshmi were accomplished musicians of their time. L.Subramaniam gave his first public performance at the age of ten. He is highly qualified with a Doctorate in Medicine but is a violinist [...]
