MSG TO PERFORM AFTER THE AWARD CEREMONY
A five-day grand music festival will be organised by Nadasurabhi in Koramangala from November 9 to 13 where seven Carnatic music concerts will be presented. It is Nadasurabhi's annual music festival and a treat for music lovers across the city especially those living in southeastern part.
The most prestigious auditorium in Koramangala with a seating capacity of more than 1000 people and having perfect acoustics-The St. John's Auditorium, opposite BDA Complex in Koramangala-has been booked for the event. The concerts will however continue to be held free without any tickets", said KSS Raghavan of Nadasurabhi.
Padmasri awardee Sangita Kalanidhi Violin maestro M S Gopalakrishnan has been selected for this year's award of Sangeetha Surabhi. He will be felicitated on November 13. Soon after the felicitation, Gopalakrishnan will present a violin concert.
The country has produced some of the world's greatest musicians and among these musicians M S Gopalakrishnan (MSG, as he is affectionately called by music lovers) holds a special place. He is a unique figure as he is a master of both systems of Indian classical music-Carnatic as well as Hindustani music. Even more remarkably, he and his father Parur Sundaram Iyer, have evolved a style of playing, famously called the Parur style, which has influenced a generation of violinists. This style, among other things, harmoniously blends the north and south Indian systems, thereby creating a new paradigm in musical interpretation.
MSG's passion for violin playing manifested itself early. At the age of four, he would take two plantain sticks and pretend that he was playing the violin by holding one of the sticks as the violin and the other as the bow. But his serious training started when he was six years old.
He made phenomenal progress and gave his first concert when he was only eight years old. Barely in his late teens, his astonishing virtuosity, literally unseen in the music world, and his uncanny ability to anticipate the main artiste during accompaniment created a sensation. When he was 19 years old, the great western violinist Yehudi Menuhin heard him play raga Kalyani. He was so taken by this young man's playing that he came and observed MSG's fingers and exclaimed "I have not heard such violin in all my travels! How superbly this young Indian is playing our instrument."
MSG has produced a number of students. H. K. Narasimhamurthy, the well-known Carnatic violinist and a teacher of genius, who has produced tens of first rate violinists and who are carrying the Parur style to the 21st century, is one of them.
MSG has accompanied all the major Carnatic artistes. He has played Jugalbandi with leading Hindustani and Carnatic instrumentalists as well.