The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Bhagavatulu Seetarama Sarma felicitated

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 06, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Bhagavatulu Seetarama Sarma felicitated

Special Correspondent

Music doyens, music lovers and students pay tribute to an illustrious talent of Kalakshetra

Photo: N. Sridharan

RECOGNITION: Neduneri Krishnamoorthy felicitating Bhagavatulu Seetarama Sarma at a function organised by Kalakshetra in Chennai on Friday. T.R. Subramaniam, musicologist, is also in the picture. —

CHENNAI: A purist classical musician to the connoisseur, a mentor to a generation of students and music composer for the dance-drama genre, Bhagavatulu Seetarama Sarma was felicitated on completing 50 years in music and dance on Friday.

Music doyens, music lovers and students assembled at Kalakshetra to pay tribute to one of the institution’s most illustrious talents.

N. Murali, Managing Director, The Hindu, and President, Music Academy, announced that the Academy would honour Mr. Sarma with the TTK Award during the music season that would get under way in a couple of months.

He noted that it was extremely rare for someone to have multidimensional skills in dance music, nattuvangam, composer and choreographer. As a person, Mr. Sarma was humble and generous in imparting his knowledge and training to others, Mr. Murali said. Musician Nedunuri Krishnamurthy said over a 50-year span, Mr. Sarma had proved to be a versatile artiste and a great teacher. These days, his classicism and depth of knowledge in Carnatic music could be gauged from the performance of his disciple T. M. Krishna, he said.

T. R. Subramaniam, who was Mr. Sarma’s first guru, recalled training sessions at Vijaywada as pleasurable and said that had that relationship continued, his disciple would have shone as a Carnatic vocalist. Instead, despite his high credentials as a vocalist, Mr. Sarma had chosen to excel in the realm of music for the dance-drama, he said.

Pappu Venugopal Rao, associate director general (programming) of the Indian Institute for American Studies in Chennai, said that it was remarkable that this native of Kuchipudi who came to Chennai as a youngster eschewed urban sophistication and remained simple and straightforward.

Bharathanatyam exponent C. V. Chandrasekhar said the sway of Mr. Sarma’s singing for a dance-drama was such that he could evoke the right emotions in a performer.

K. V. Ramanthan, former civil servant and Editor-in-Chief, ‘Sruthi’ music magazine, also paid rich tributes to the artiste.

Responding to the felicitations, Mr. Sarma enunciated the subtle and not-so-subtle differences in the rendition for a Carnatic concert and singing for a dance-drama. He said he owed his stature to the tutelage of Rukmini (Devi) and Sarada teacher at Kalakshetra.

Paying tribute, Leela Samson, director, Kalakshetra Foundation, said Mr. Sarma greatly helped to build the temple of arts that Kalakshetra was today.

The felicitation, which also coincided with the artiste’s 70th birthday, was supported by Kalapeetham (US-Singapore), Sangeetha Gurukulam, Kalamandir Trust and the Kuchipudi Arts Academy.

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