As Bengaluru gears up for the much-awaited three-day Chowdiah pageant (November 4 to six) in bodily format, it’s time once more to revisit the life and music of violin maestro Mysore T. Chowdiah. The person behind the seven-stringed violin, he served as a cultural bridge between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
In 1939, Chowdiah turned the Mysore Asthana Vidwan. He was conferred the Sangeeta Ratna by the Maharaja of Mysore in 1940, and acquired the Presidential Award in 1956. The Madras Music Academy conferred the Sangita Kalanidhi upon him in 1957.
In a uncommon gesture, a small group of individuals on the Bengaluru-based The Academy of Music, headed by Okay.Okay. Murthy, determined to honour this vidwan by dedicating a corridor in his identify, in all probability the one performing house on this planet constructed within the reminiscence of a musician. Inaugurated in 1980, the internationally reputed violin-shaped auditorium in Bengaluru, the Chowdiah Memorial Corridor, was established with a imaginative and prescient to assist and nurture classical arts, notably music.
The Chowdiah Memorial corridor in Bengaluru.
| Picture Credit score: BHAGYA PRAKASH Okay.
Over time, a number of luminaries from the world of music and dance akin to Pt. Jasraj, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Ravi Shankar, Balamurali Krishna, Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and Vyjayanthimala have carried out right here. Veena vidwan Emani Sankara Sastry as soon as remarked about how lucky Chowdiah was to have acquired such an honour. “It has all the time been a privilege to carry out on this corridor named after him,” he had mentioned.
Aside from nationwide and state-level awards, The Academy of Music has additionally been conducting the annual Chowdiah Nationwide Pageant of Music since November 1982. The primary distinguished nationwide awardee was Lalgudi Jayaraman. Within the subsequent years it was bestowned upon stalwarts akin to T.N. Krishnan, M.S. Gopalakrishnan, Doreswamy Iyengar, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, M.L. Vasanthakumari, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Maharajapuram Santhanam, Mandolin Shrinivas, Vellore Ramabhadran, Chitti Babu, D.Okay. Pattammal, Gangubai Hangal and others. Among the many state-level awardees had been R.R. Keshavamurthy, Pt. Rama Rao Naik, R.Okay. Suryanarayana, Vinayak Torvi and others. After the demise of Okay.Okay Murthy, in commemoration of his yeoman service, these awards had been rechristened as ‘Sri Okay.Okay Murthy Memorial Chowdiah Awards’.
The annual pageant is again after a two-year hiatus with a formidable line up that includes Jayanthi and Kumaresh, Suma Sudhindra, Pt. Vinayak Torvi, Pt. Ravindra Yawagal and Ravindra Katoti. And as these musicians carry out, they are going to convey alive the reminiscence of the inimitable composer-violinist.
The Bengaluru-based author is a educated musician.
