KutcheriBuzz
Interviews
Mysore Brothers - Nagaraj and Manjunath
- Category: Interviews
- 10 June 2000
Nagaraj and Manjunath popularly known as the "Mysore brothers" returned from their hectic US tour where they gave duet violin performances and lecture-demonstrations. Both the brothers learnt under their father Mysore Mahadevappa, the retired head of the department of violin, Mysore. At 14 Nagaraj received "best violinist Award" from the prestigious Madras Music academy and was given a gold medal. Today Nagaraj and Manjunath are among a handful of "A Top" All India Radio artistes.
Manjunath holds a doctorate for his research paper "Violin as an accompanying and solo instrument". Both the brothers are known for their superb wielding of the bow and technical mastery over the violin.
Manjunath and Nagaraj have created unrivalled record as star performers in prestigious organisations worldwide. Their violin duet concerts have been repeatedly featured in national and international music festivals, conferences, T.V and Radio stations.
Mysore Brothers have enthralled audiences in U.S.A, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Austria, Singapore, Gulf countries etc., and in several prestigious University and reputed cultural all over the world, such as Texas A&M University, the University of Iowa, American Institute of World culture, University of Chicago.
Both had your training under your father. How were your initial stages of learning?
We had all our training under our father. He moved from Kollegal, a small village near Mysore just to learn violin under Sri Mysore T. Puttaswamayya, the brother of Veteran Violinist Sri Chowdaiah (in whose memory the Chowdaiah memorial hall is built in Bangalore).
Nagaraj : He was a very strict taskmaster who would get his work done very cleverly. He would tell us to practice one kruthi by the end of the day and would promise us a ‘Laurel and Hardy" movie. I was very fond of movies and for the movie sake I would practice the kruthi and when my father returned I would play out the kruthi to him and then he would take me out. Later the number of kruthis increased slowly and it was at one time 8 kruthis.
Manjunath : I remember that he was a very strict teacher. Sometimes when, I wouldn’t play the notes properly, he would hit me with the (very expensive) violin bow.
Did both of you begin performing together?
Nagaraj : No, When I played my first recital I was ten years. Manju was not very interested in violin then, but my father forcibly took him with us and somebody teased him that being the brother of such a talented violinist he could not play the violin. Manjunath took this taunt seriously and call it prodigy or luck or whatever, the next year he was playing on the same platform with me.
What is your opinion about a violinist as an accompanying artist and as a solo performer?
We at first accompanied musicians on concerts and this was probably our greatest advantage. Because, before a performance no senior musician would tell us what items were on the list and we had to anticipate what the items would be. I guess this was the best training we ever received. That made us more confident and professional.
Manjunath : Anticipation at the highest level has made us what we are today.
I also feel accompanying a musician is not degrading, because we have accompanied musicians like Balamurali Krishna and I feel it is a great experience to be an accompanist at times. Of course you have to be a bit choosy about the main artist.
How do you manage to co-ordinate among yourselves?
We never seem to have had a problem in co-ordination. Because we would practice together and our father would correct our mistakes. By the time we realised what co-ordination was all about, we had already been performing duets and trios.
So your father also accompanied u?
No, we accompanied our father on his kutcheris. This gave us tremendous opportunity to learn. But as we began performing, our father stopped performing. He would give excuses or reasons to the organisers and to us, saying that he was unwell. So we got to perform most of the times. This is a very big event in our life. Our father gave away all his major kutcheris just for our sake, to train us and to put us on stage.
Coming back to co-ordination, how do you co-ordinate on stage?
We have had so much of practice under our father that both of us know what the positive points of each of us are. So we share the technicalities of the item. Maybe at times Manju plays the "neravallu" a lot better than I do and sometimes it’s the other way.
What was the major turning point in your lives?
Every occasion in our life has been a major step towards success. We took every Kutcheri seriously and our father worked hard to get into us that ultimate perfection. We are truly happy to be his children.
Was the kutcheri at Music Academy, Chennai a major event in your life?
Nagaraj : I guess so. Getting an award from such a coveted institution at 14 could be considered a major event in one’s life.
Could u please tell us about your doctorate in music?
Manjunath : Yes, I had chosen the subject of "Violin as a solo and an accompanying instrument". This is an interesting field because to most of the musicians, being an accompanist may lead to ego problems with the main artists. But I feel, to grow as an artist, accompanying will also help. We believed in "anticipation at the highest levels". I would also like to tell u that not many performing artists are musicologists and neither are all musicologists performing musicians. So this doctorate has been a very joyous achievement in my life.
What do u attribute your success to?
Hard work, good luck, my father’s undying interest and god’s blessings.
Who was your inspiration?
All great musicians have been our inspiration. We have so much to learn from each artist.
Do you believe that music has been changed over the years? And if you do believe, how was your father able to keep track of these changes? Or did he leave it to you to change according to time?
Our father kept updating himself to keep in tune with time. Just like there has been a change in the presentation style, bowing techniques, etc in the music field, we also keep changing our styles a little bit. After a period of time our father left it to us to keep in tune with time.
What do you feel about western and Carnatic music jugalbandhi, taken that violin is a western instrument?
Jugalbandhi between the western and Carnatic music is an interesting project. We’ve worked on a couple of east-west musical jugalbandhis when we were in the US and there a couple of audio-tapes and CD has also been released.
Are there different schools of violin?
There has been a lot of confusion over this topic. There are no such schools or styles of violin or music. Each person may have his/her own style of presentation, but that does not give rise to a new school/style. The core still remains the same and we all have to understand and accept this.
You call yourself the Mysore brothers. Tell us about Mysore.
Mysore was the hub of culture before a couple of hundred years. The maharajas (Wodeyars) who ruled Mysore until the mid 20th century were great connoisseurs of art in Karnataka. However in the later half of the 20th century the emphasis shifted to Bangalore. Still Mysore still has the ethnic Rama Navami kutcheris and house concerts. Mysore has been home to famous musicians like Mysore Vasudevachar, Mysore Sadashivaraaya, etc. It’s a quite and serene city and we are happy to put Mysore on the international music scene.
You have achieved all possible honors. Are there any regrets?
Its not an easy task to be recognised as one of the top five musicians of the country. Looking back at our lives we are absolutely happy at our growth and progress.
Nagaraj : If we worked the way we work here in any other field say medical or engineering, we would have mental breakdowns by now. That’s the greatness of music. Though we may complain and are strained through the day, by the time we get onto the stage, we even forget that it has been more than two hours we began our concert.
What are your future projects?
We have been performing regularly all over the globe and teaching to certain interested students. We have students from all over the world and its really interesting to see the westerners’ interest in learning Carnatic music. It has been a bustling year, the year end kutcheri season we had more than 10 concerts in madras, every summer we tour the west, we are also employed and we have to take care of our jobs. It has been a hectic year and we hope to spend some quality time with our family in Mysore.
Even during speaking each of them seemed to have a superb co-ordination. There was absolutely no confusion as to who should talk. Maybe the brothers have been interviewed so many times all over the world and they seemed to handle it with ease.
The Mysore Brothers reside at : # 768, 7th Cross,Ramanuja Road,Mysore-570 004, Ph: 565644. E-mail : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
