Yella Venkateswara Rao

Carnatic Musicians
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MBK
Posts: 65
Joined: 10 Apr 2006, 17:57

Post by MBK »

The little that I have seen, heard or read about this vidwan is truly astonishing.
Thought it would be great to start a thread here. Look forward to your contibutions.

Here is a start:

http://www.salivahana.com/yella.htm

regards
MBK

bala747
Posts: 314
Joined: 20 Mar 2006, 12:56

Post by bala747 »

No posts at all? Surprising. He was my brother's guru's guru, and apparently a very strict teacher and a great vidwan.

His accompaniments for Voleti was pretty spectacular. There is a concert of Voeti with Yella Venkateswara Rao at http://surasa.net/music/karnatak/contrib

I always liked his elaborate and spectacular korvais.

coolkarni

Post by coolkarni »


Ragjay
Posts: 208
Joined: 12 Oct 2006, 17:10

Post by Ragjay »

I heard a Music Academy concert of Maharajapuram Santhanam in the company of Yella and Lalgudii in the yr 1981 I vividly remember a wonderful RTp in Simmendramadhyamam and following it a breathtaking tani. A great concert indeed with wonderful accompaniment.

rajeshnat
Posts: 9907
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: Yella Venkateswara Rao

Post by rajeshnat »

A brilliant vidwan from the Tjr Vaidyanatha Iyer-Palakkad Mani Iyer school had a recent writeup in The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Vis ... 667460.ece

thenpaanan
Posts: 635
Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 19:45

Re:

Post by thenpaanan »

Ragjay wrote:I heard a Music Academy concert of Maharajapuram Santhanam in the company of Yella and Lalgudii in the yr 1981 I vividly remember a wonderful RTp in Simmendramadhyamam and following it a breathtaking tani. A great concert indeed with wonderful accompaniment.
Likewise, I remember a spell-binding thani by him in Shanmukhananda in Mumbai in the early 80s, so much so that I have absolutely no recollection of the main artist. All I remember is that not only was his playing simultaneously intricate and sonorous (a rare combination), he seemed to have a magical left hand (speaking of a right-handed mridangist).

On another occasion Yellagaru was accompanying TVG who was the vocalist. As you can imagine, in spite of their respective superlative abilities (TVG is also a very good vocalist which rarely gets mentioned), it became a kind of intense jugalbandi between the two, that is, the distinction between lead and accompanist was dissolved. In addition to the regular programming, at times Yellagaru would play a korvai first and TVG would then sing swarams to that korvai. Which was a delightful experience, except that it happened at the complete expense of the violinist who was shut out of the fun. This ended up eliminating any sense of balance and what could have been a magnificent concert ended being just merely good. But it was great fun to watch two great vidwans behaving like little children on stage in their glee and abandon. :lol:

Do we have any students of Yellagaru in the contemporary set of mridangists?

-Thenpaanan

mahavishnu
Posts: 3341
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 21:56

Re: Yella Venkateswara Rao

Post by mahavishnu »

Just bumping this thread in light of the great discussions we have been having on the brilliance of KRM.

I thought we should share a few gems of this seasoned and most talented vidwan (yet often misunderstood). I have not heard him in recent years and I know very little about him outside the few concert recordings I have. Any additional information would be greatly appreciated.

I am beginning with a recording of a brilliant S Kalyanaraman and MS Anantharaman with YVR from 1982. He has an impeccable nadham, presence of mind and sensitivity to the presentation. And of course, SKR's genius comes pouring through!

https://archive.org/details/01.VarnamNatakurinji

shankarank
Posts: 4043
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Re:

Post by shankarank »

thenpaanan wrote: 02 Dec 2011, 22:05 Do we have any students of Yellagaru in the contemporary set of mridangists?
-Thenpaanan
Vid. T.R Sundaresan is a student of his and you can find his recent videos of presentations in Arkay live.

Here is a young boy photo of SrI Yella in Mylapore Maada Veedhi Bhajanai playing Kanjira with SrI Papanasam Sivan on the lead - provided by his student who resides in Dallas area.

https://ibb.co/0mpFyfG

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