Click here for Slide Show

The music of the yester - year Carnatic music maestros is golden. All India Radio has been releasing the concert recordings from its archives in the form of CDs. AIR had earlier released a few titles including that of M.S. Subbulakshmi, M .L. Vasanthakumari and Palghat K.V.Narayanaswamy. At a grand function on June 29, 2005 held at The Music Academy 's auditorium in Chennai, All India Radio released a few more albums by M.S.Subbulakshmi, Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar and Alathur Brothers.

The function was scheduled at 7 pm. But rasikas stood in a long queue to grab copies of the new albums, which were available at 30% discount on that day. There were as many people standing out in the queue to buy these albums, as they were inside the auditorium witnessing the release which started late - Union minister for Information and Broadcasting, Jaipal Reddy arrived late. We had rasikas sitting on the steps, keen to take part in the event.

They sat through the hour long speeches by the guests, fondly remembering these maestros. AIR felicitated Vijaya Rajendran and Sikkil Mala Chandrasekhar from the family of MS, Alathur Venkatarama Iyer, son of Alathur Sivasubramania Iyer and G.Srinivasan and G.Aravamudan, grand sons of Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar, to remember the stalwarts.

The regular accompanists of these maestros - senior mridangist T. K .Muthy, ghatam vidwan Vikku Vinayakram and violinist V .V. Subramaniam were also felicitated. Kandadevi Alagiriswamy and R .K. Venkatramasastry who used to accompany M .S .Subbulakshmi on violin at most of her concerts were remembered and their family members were felicitated.

The function was followed by a vocal concert by Nityasree Mahadevan. Though the concert started as late as 9.30pm, the audience stayed on. She paid tribute to the vidwans with the Pancharatna Kriti of Thyagaraja - 'Endaro mahaanubhavulu', a salutation to great people.