The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : It is music to their ears

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 12, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

It is music to their ears

Susan Muthalaly

ARTISTS AND SCHOLARS: M. Lalitha and M. Nandini. — Photo: By Special Arrangement

CHENNAI: What are the chances that two sisters in the same profession will win two prestigious and highly competitive awards the same year to study the same subject in two different continents?

Apparently, pretty high if you take `Violin Duo Sisters' M. Lalitha and M. Nandini who have bagged the Fulbright Fellowship in Performing Arts in the U.S. and The Charles Wallace India Trust Award in the U.K. respectively.

These two have done everything together — all that keeps them apart are three years (Lalitha had the head start). They grew up in a house where the music muse lorded over all else. They learnt Carnatic vocals from Semmangudi Srinivasan, discovered the intricacies of the violin under the watchful eyes of their parents and later followed in the footsteps of their famous uncles, L. Vaidyanathan, L. Subramaniam and L. Shankar.

Lalitha, who will be a visiting fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, will be studying Fusion Methodology and World Music. And Nandini, who is off to The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, will be studying the same subject; only it's called ethnomusicology. She says, " I have always been interested in music from different parts of the globe. Both Lalitha and I compose fusion music, pieces that have influences from other genres and countries, such as jazz and African music."

They are trained in Carnatic and Western classical music, but their fusions are not a corruption of these. Once they are back, they intend to pass on their knowledge to anyone interested.

They teach along with their mother at Lakshminarayana School of Music that's run from home. Lalitha attributes their good fortune to the grace of their spiritual guru Shantananda Swamiji of Salem. And Nandini seconds wholeheartedly.

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