Indian Fine Arts Society inaugurates its season

For the classically inclined, the nomination of vidwan Manakkal Rangarajan's name for the award Sangeetha Kala Shikhamani at The Indian Fine Arts Society will bring back the grand old days of the vidwan's concerts while many stalwarts were on the concert circuits.

Manakkal Rangarajan too expressed satisfaction that he sang with equal passion and dedication and was also a sought after vidwan at the times when Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, G.N. Balasubramaniam, Semmangudi and many of that era were ruling. The late arrival of awards dis not dampen his spirits. His advises for the young performers included dedication for what they do and not to sing looking at written down words from papers.

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The felicitations by senior artists T.N.Krishnan, T.V. Gopalakrishnan, T.K. Govinda Rao, T.R. Subramaniam and S.A.K. Durga gave a good account of what respect Rangarajan had with his fellow musicians of his times.

T.N. Krishnan is generous in applauding his counterparts as well as the young artistes. His mention in his speech as chitraveena maestro Ravikiran and modern musician T.M. Krishna brought smiles on the faces of the listeners, as being referred to by a musician of his calibre is wonderful for the youngsters.

Ravikiran was quick to give a solution to bring in the youngsters to the award evenings. "It must be made compulsory for the junior, sub-senior artistes to attend the award event. They should know more about the stalwarts," he said.

A London based rasika is making a documentary on Manakkal Rangarajan and this reminded Krishna to mention that more documentaries be made for the younger generations to get inspired.

A group of students from Hyderabad, trained by Manjula Ramaswamy performed a short piece with candles in their hands and standing on a globe-like structure. Every movement gave them huge applause.

Following this, a Bharathanatyam performance by R. Sai Santosh, disciple of guru Adyar K. Lakshman and Deepa Baba Prasad. Guru Lakshman announced that the first item was a new jatiswaram in Kharaharapriya he composed and choreographed for which music was composed by Mysore V Seshanna.