VenkatarAmanuja Iyengar

Carnatic Musicians
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rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

VenkatarAmanuja Iyengar

Post by rajeshnat »

VenkatarAmanuja Iyengar or Venkata Ramanuja Iyengar
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Very recently I had a long 45 minute one on one chat in my car with a young upcoming violinist B.Ananthakrishnan(BAK) who happens to be the grandson of VenkataRamanuja Iyengar(VRI) who was another violinist . Just few biographical anecdotes worth sharing that was communicated by BAK.

VRI is a native of SrivillipuTTUr (near Tirunelveli) and his ancestral roots are from present day Andhra with Telugu being his mother tongue , but thamizh become his pradAna(mainstay) tongue. VRI born some time in early 1930's till 4 to 6 years learnt Divya Prabhandham , Infact at a very young age he could recite significant phrases of prabhandham. RS GoPAlakrishnan(RSG) , another violinist , (who is the GURU of Nagai Muralidharan) married VRI's elder sister and taught him basic to intermediate violin from a tender age of 6 or 7 onwards for few years. After learning for a brief period of time VRI could not continue with RSG.

At that time when VRI was in chennai , he happened to stay in muthialpet (near Parrys in madras, where veena dhanammal and many 19th century musicians lived). Briefly seeing VRI's interest , a nAdaswara vidwan from muthialpet took VRI in his tutelage. VRI took lessons for many years where it was a fairly asura sadhakam with the nAdaswaram artist . Concerts started to pour in for VRI from then on and his violin support was well appreciated.

Then VRI went to Delhi and joined as a sishya of TK Jayarama Iyer in 50's. TKJ took enormous interest with VRI and wanted to get him a job. He used his connections and made VRI join as a faculty in a university in banaras. The job gave livelihood stability for VRI for few decades and with that he was a stock violinist of many vidwans who visited Kasi or Jamshedpur belt.

Interestingly VRI did not go to school and learnt languages on his own . He maintained a huge volume of krithis in grantha script and this is passed to his grandson who says he cannot comprehend those as he does not understand the grantha script.

VRI has played for all respected vidwans all the way from ariyakudi to shri TNS of today. I have not heard VRI play or possibly heard recordings where I was not aware that he played .Has anyone got any recording of VRI.I am particularly interested in hearing him as he was taught by nAdaswara vidwan for few decades. In particular BAK was telling me that TKJ and VRI played a begada pallavi in an AIR recording, possibly if KNS vinay(rasali) has it he can upload that.

mankuthimma
Posts: 912
Joined: 11 Jul 2010, 13:38

Re: VenkatarAmanuja Iyengar

Post by mankuthimma »

rajesh
want to watch a video of this Vidwan ? With Nageswarans permission
http://www.mediafire.com/?mj6zd6xuh0nh5

ram1999
Posts: 534
Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 17:20

Re: VenkatarAmanuja Iyengar

Post by ram1999 »

A stellar concert with Venkatramanuja Iyengar supporting Sri Nedunuri Krishnamurthy. Srimushnam Raja Rao on the mridangam. Music Academy concert - Dec 1986.
Seems to be a new concert, not one that is in circulation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR0npkS ... ture=share

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