Carnatic Vocal By Hyderabad Sisters

The Vignana Samithi is organising the Annual Thyagaraja Aradhana Music Festival, from 27th January to 2nd February, at the Anand Nagar Community Hall, Khairatabad. The week-long festival will feature both senior and junior artistes performing daily.

Today, the penultimate day, Hyderabad Sisters will sing some well-known kritis of Saint Thyagaraja. The sisters will be accompanied by Ramaraju on the violin, D S r Murthy on the mridangam, Nemani Somayajulu on the ghatam and Radha Padmaja on the morsing.

The Hyderabad Sisters, Lalitha and Haripriya, were born in 1950 and 1952 respectively, and were disciples of T G Padmanabham, belonging to the Alathur Sishya parampara. They are A-grade artists of AIR and DD, and have given innumerable classical vocal Carnatic concerts. They have featured quite a few times in the national programs of music, the radio sangeet sammelans and the special programs of DD, and have performed extensively in all prestigious music sabhas in India and abroad.

The Spirit Of Unity concerts have presented their concerts several times. And like you may expect, the awards have just overflowed, with the prominent being the prestigious Saptagiri Sangeeta Vidhwanmani Award from TTD Tirupati, and the Raja Annamalai Award of the Madras Music Academy. The sisters have released several cassettes, too.

The popular duo have strong, pleasing voices which blend well. Verve in presentation, fidelity to laya and well-planned concerts add to their popularity. They combine well; their brika-based voice is sweet and their rendition is satisfying. Haripriya is qualified in Law, too.

Their concerts are absorbing and entertaining - the delineation of ragas is impressive, and the swara prastara is well-conceived and structured. It is said that the sisters follow the style of the Alathur Brothers.

The Vignana Samithi, which is in its 31st year of existence, tries to propagate and spread music by organising music concerts every month. It provides a platform for upcoming artistes by giving opportunities and at the same time getting senior artistes to perform and conduct workshops. Many senior artistes have performed for the organisation, including Dr. Balamurali Krishna, the Malladi Brothers, the Hyderabad Brothers and Sankaranarayanan.

Please contact Suri Venkateswarlu, Secretary of the Vignana Samithi, at 2339-8743/2330-4253 for further details.