Carnatic Vocal By Pantula Rama: Events in Hyderabad

REVIEW FOR CARNATIC VOCAL BY PANTULA...

The Sharada Cultural Trust is presenting its 18th Annual Cultural Festival and 161st Aradhana of Satguru Saint Thyagaraja Swamy, from 26th January to 3rd February, at the Keyes High School for Girls, Secunderabad. The 9-day festival will feature music concerts at 6:30pm each day, by many renowned musicians such as R Santanagopalan, Kumaresh & Ganesh, the Chinmaya Sisters, Pantula Rama, Rajani & Gayathri, S P Ram and R Surya Prakash.

Today, the penultimate day, Pantula Rama will be performing a Carnatic vocal concert. She will be assisted by M S N Murthy on the violin, Nemani Somayajulu on the mridangam and Shyam Kumar on the kanjeera.

Pantula Rama was born in a family with a lineage of music - her parents were Pantula Gopala Rao, a violinist and Retd. Engineer of All-India Radio, & Pantula Padmavathi, a veena artist. Her husband Mutnuri Srinivasa Narasimha Murthy is also a musician (a violinist).

Rama achieved top grade in Akashvani for violin, and an A-grade in viola and vocal. She holds a Doctorate (Ph D) in Music from the Andhra University, for research work and thesis on "A study of the shaping of an ideal musician through Saadhana", and MA and BA (Music) from Andhra University. She had her initial training under her father, and advanced training under Sangeeta Kalasagara Guru Ivaturi Vijayeswara Rao. Rama presented various lec-dems like "Musical excellence of Shyama Sastri", "Sadhana of Carnatic Music" and "Ragam Tanam Pallavi". She also conducted "Nowkacharitam", a musical opera of Thyagaraja.

Rama was awarded the Tambura Prize by Kalasagaram, Secunderabad, through the hands of the vocal legend Late M S Subbalakshmi in 1992. She won the first prize in Pallavi Singing from the Madras Music Academy in 1993, and the Outstanding Lady Vocalist (Senior/Sub-Senior) award from the Madras Music Academy in 2006.

The Sharada Cultural Trust is an all-women voluntary organisation that has been rendering yeomen service for the last 17 years in the field of cultural activities. The programs conducted by the organisation include the annual music festival and Thyagaraja Aradhana, annual music competitions, donation of rice to veda pathashalas, and donating money to the Sri Vidya School For Special Children and the Devnar School For The Blind.

Please contact Sharada Krishnan at 2786-0680/92461-54482 for further details.