Musicians,events,anecdotes and tid-bits

[padmanabha]

A couple weeks ago, the guest house in Kuthira Malika premises was reverberating with music with the accompaniment of Thampura. Malladi brothers (seniors), Suri Babu and Narayana Sarma were practicing for their performance that was to follow, at the Navarathri madapam. It was a pleasant surprise to see them with thampura-as today’s concerts sans this essential instrument.
We brought it all the way from Hyderabad. The electronic gadget produces monotonous sound and becomes unbearable after some time. We prefer Thampura and it would take 40 minutes to tune it.

We hail from the family of musicians. Their father Malladi Ramamurthi, was a musician and an exponent. The brothers had advanced training from Voletti Venkiteswaralu a disciple of Sripatha Pinakapani.

We learnt nearly 400 kirtanas, from voletti. We could learn from him when he conducted music lessons for AIR.

Perfect notation, padantharam, and sruthi soaked music are the salient features, of Pinakpani School. He was deeply inspired by many great maestros and has been taken good qualities from their renditions which were ingrained in Raga alapana and niraval. They said.

In their opinion Swati Tirunal’s compositions are perfectly tuned. Singing at the Navarathri Mandapam, is a strange experience-really an invocation to the Goddess. The ambience is just perfect, for the concert.
The repertoire of these brothers, is vast. They have set tunes for the compositions of Annamacharya, Narayana Thirtha Sadasiva BRAHMENDRA AND Bhadrachala Ramadas.