Veena Recital By D Srinivas: Events in Hyderabad

REVIEW FOR VEENA RECITAL BY D...

Sangeetha Ksheerasagaram, in association with Vignana Samithi, Vijayanagar Fine Arts and Sujana Ranjani, is organising Sangeetha Neerajanam, a music festival in memory of the late Gana Dheera Puranam Purushottama Sastry, from 26th March to 2nd April.

Veena maestro D Srinivas will be performing a veena recital on the 2nd day of the festival. He will be accompanied by Mangalampally Surya Deepti on the violin, N Somayajulu on the mridangam and Ghantasala Satya Sai on the ghattam.

D Srinivas, once a child prodigy in the veena, was born into a family of musicians at Hyderabad. His mother D L Tulasi was a veena artiste herself, and, having identified Srinivas' taste in and talent for the instrument, initiated and encouraged him to pursue and master the art.

Srinivas gave his maiden concert at the age of 9 for the All-India Radio, Hyderabad. He is a disciple of Vidwan N S Srinivasan, who was his guru and master architect, and who introduced him as an artiste.

Srinivas was a scholarship holder from the Andhra Pradesh Sangeeta Nataka Academy for 6 years. He has participated in Gana Sabhas, and has been the recipient of many awards for his performances. He also holds the record of being the youngest A-grade veena artiste to play at the National Program of Music, relayed live all over the nation from the studios of All India Radio, Hyderabad. He has presented many a classical symphony concert, using Indian classical instruments.

He performed for the President of India, the Prime Minister of India, the Singapore Prime Minister, the Indo-German Business Summit, Japanese business delegates, the Mauritius Prime Minister, the World Bank President and the Indo-Asean Business Summit delegates, to name a few. Some of the titles conferred upon him are Veena Vidwanmani, Veena Praveena and Raga Sudhakara.

Puranam Purushottama Sastry, in whose memory this festival is being held, was a Carnatic vocalist, born into a music-oriented family in the year 1925. He trained under Sangeeta Kalanidhi the late Musiri Subrahmanya Iyer for 10 years, and in the process, became the 6th generation disciple of the Saint Thyagaraja line. He was awarded the Central Scholarship, and was also selected for All-India Radio without any audition. He had inputs of music from D K Rangachary and Tiger Varadachary.

Lalgudi Jayaraman, Palghat Raghu, Akella Mallikarjuna Sarma, Dr. M Bala Muralikrishna, Umayalpuram K Sivaraman, T V Gopalakrishnan, Dwaram Durgaprasad and Komunduri Seshadri are some of those who have accompanied him.

He received several awards and titles, with the Hamsa Award by the Government of Andhra Pradesh ranking foremost. He is the founder of Sadguru Thyagaraja Sampradaya Seva Samithi, a voluntary organisation promoting Saint Thyagaraja's music.

He was interested in astrology, and imparted his services free of cost. And even though he never took to teaching music as a profession, he taught musicians at no cost.

Entry is free. Please contact V Ananda Mohan of Sangeeta Ksheerasagaram at 2761-4978 / 99495-90755 for further details.