Saxophone Recital By Dr. Kadri Gopalnath: Events in Hyderabad

REVIEW FOR SAXOPHONE RECITAL BY DR....

On the occasion of its 40th Annual Cultural Festival of Music, Dance & Drama, Kalasagaram is organising a grand music, dance and drama festival for 9 days, from 23rd November to 1st December, at the Keyes High School campus. Eminent musicians such as saxophonist Dr. Kadri Gopalnath, vocalists Sudha Raghunathan, the Priya Sisters, Trichur V Ramachandran and T V Sankaranarayanan, flautist Dr N Ramani, and two Tamil dramas Vaasthu Vasu and Plastic Kadavul by United Visuals from Chennai, will be part of the 9-day treat.

Today, the first day, Dr. Kadri Gopalnath, along with A Kanyakumari on the violin, Patri Satish on the mridangam, K Shyam Kumar on the kanjira and Bangalore Rajasekhar on the morsing, will perform a saxophone recital.

Born in Panemangalore in Dakshina Kannada district, Kadri Gopalnath acquired a taste for music from his father Thaniappa, a nagaswaram vidwan. Thrilled on hearing the vibrant tone of the saxophone being played in the Mysore palace, Gopalnath decided to master it.

It took nearly 20 years for him to conquer the complex Western wind instrument, and he was eventually crowned "Saxophone Chakravarthy". So perfect was this adaptation of the instrument into Carnatic music that no less a musician than Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, the doyen of Indian Music, acknowledged Gopalnath as a true Carnatic music genius.

Gopalnath learnt playing Carnatic music on the saxophone under Gopalkrishna Iyer of Kalaniketana, Mangalore. His dedication and tireless efforts enabled him to imbibe all the nuances of Carnatic music and the sax. In Madras, Gopalnath came in contact with the versatile mridangist T V Gopalkrishnan, who identified the youngster