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| Vinjamuri Memorial concerts By Dr. A. Ramayya Mulukutla / Hyderabad |   | |||
 South India Cultural Association conducted their annual concerts in honour of the Late Vinjamuri Varadaraja Iyengar, a well known musician, composer and a musicologist. Born in Guntur, Vinjamuri as he was fondly refered to, was a disciple of gurus Piratla Sankara Sastry and Tiger Varadachari. He was known as 'Kutti Ariyakkudi of Andhra Pradesh' as he always considered the great Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar also his guru. He was with Akashvani at both Chennai and Hyderabad for decades. Ever since his demise in 1991, SICA has been sponsoring a series of concerts every year in his honour.
This year, Rudrapatnam Brothers R.N. Thyagarajan and Dr. R. N. Taranathan kicked off the series. Their renderings included a Varnam in Sahana, Nadupai palikeru narulu (Madhyamavati) and Ye tavuna vunnavura (Kalyani) as well as one of Vinjamuri's compositions Narasimha nannu brova (Bilahari) to commemorate the event. A. Muralikrishna (Violin), Satgurucharan (Mridangam) and P. V. Ramanamurthy (Ghatam) provided the support.
On the second day Dr. N. Ramani presented a flute recital to the accompaniment of Peri Sreerama Murthy (Violin), M.L.N.Raju (Mridangam) Satya Sai (Morsing) and R.P. Raju (Tamboora). Dr. Ramani's performance included, kritis in Hamsadhwani, Mohana, Hamsanadam and Kharaharapriya. Vinjamuri family members honoured him with special gifts. Responding spontaneously, Dr. Ramani reminisced about his contact with Varadaraja Iyengar when the latter was in Mylapore.
On 16 September Sathur Sisters, Lalitha Santhanam and Bhuvana Rajagopalan, provided the finale. At the beginning of their concert the rasikas assembled in Ravindra Bharathi paid a tribute to 'MS'on her 89th birthday with a standing ovation. The kutcheri that evening included several kritis in rare ragas like Chandrajyoti, Lathangi and Devamanogari and an RTP in Sankarabharanam. R.Dinakar (Violin) and D.S.R.Murthy (Mridangam) accompanied them.
Contact: R. Chakrapani, Secretary, SICA, III.0.28, Lal Bahadur Stadium, Hyderabad - 500001. Ph: 27425374. | ||||
