Carnatic Vocal By S Kasturirangan

The South-Indian Cultural Association (SICA) is organising a Carnatic vocal recital by S Kasturirangan, on 27th February, at the Ravindra Bharathi auditorium. The concert is being held in memory of late Kalyani Balakrishna Iyer, an A-grade artiste of AIR Mumbai. Kasturi will be accompanied by R Dinakar on the violin, Jaya Bhaskar on the mridangam and B Janardhan on the ghatam.

Kasthurirangan was a student in Carnatic classical vocal music at the Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Vidyalaya, Mumbai, for about 10 years, where he had his initial training under Shakuntala and Kalyani Sharma (herself a disciple of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer). Later he shifted to Chennai and had rigorous training under Madurai T N Seshagopalan. He also underwent special training in rare kritis and pallavis under Calcutta Krishnamurthy.

Kasthurirangan is also adept in playing the mridangam. He received the Sangeeta Mani title from the Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha, Mumbai, as also the Sur Mani title from Sur Singar, Mumbai. The Yuva Kala Bharathi title from Bharat Kalachar, Chennai, was in the year 1999. Kasthuri had been on concert tours to Malaysia, Australia and other countries.

SICA was founded in 1959 by Dewan Bahadur Aramuda Iyengar, the Finance Minister of Hyderabad's Nizam and a great patron of Carnatic music. The association has since organised more than 1,000 concerts. It has provided a basic platform for upcoming artistes like U P Raju and Nagamani, Mandolin Srinivas and the Malladi Brothers. It conducts workshops, felicitates artistes, and provides both moral and financial support to upcoming artistes. Dr S Chakravarthy, IAS, former Chief Secretary to the Govt. Of AP, is the current President of the association, and R Chakrapani is the General Secretary.

The entry to the concert is by invitations for members - members of the general public need to buy donor passes of Rs. 25 or Rs. 50 per head. Please contact R Chakrapani at 2742-5374/98491-24675 or V Ramachandran at 92461-61420 for further details.