Sangeeta Kalanidhi Presidential Address - RAK Sharma, 1974

[metnanda]

Dear Rasikas,

We have been fortunate to locate a copy of the Presidential Address at the Madras Music Academy, Dec 1974, by Sangeeta Kalanidhi Dr Rallapalli Anantha Krishna Sharma.

I have scanned the article and posted it at the following link. You can click each page , enlarge and read this highly informative and authoritative article.

http://sites.google.com/site/rallapalli ... al-address

regards

Nanda Nandan Rallapalli

[srkris]

Thanks for sharing.

[keerthi]

Thanks a lot!

It would be wonderful if the families of all the Sangeetha KalAnidhi-s took as much an effort as you are, in chronicling the contributions of their predecessors.

[Sreeni Rajarao]

Nandan,
Thanks for sharing the document! This is special!

Sreeni

[metnanda]

Thanks for your comments. I felt it was my humble duty to do this. Such information is required by every connoisseur of CM, and would inspire many more. In fact I would have loved to do it much earlier.

[ram]

Thanks so much Nandan for sharing this!

[ram]

Just wanted to highlight a section of the address that is probably relevant to the discussions we have had on whether varnams should be sung elaborately in the middle of the concert ....... this is from the last page of the copy of the address:

"Submission to tradition is very much like submission to Sastra. Take, for instance, the practice that a Varna must be sung only as a preface to a kutcheri. There are many many Varna compositions of great beauty. Would it not contribute to Rakti, if in a kutcheri one or two Varnas are rendered in two or three Kalas and with independent manodharma, vocally or instrumentally at a stage when the artist has warmed up and when his voice and mind are in a state of poise? Similarly, does Mangala mean only the singing of the kriti "Nee nama rupamulaku?" Why should we not sing Ashtapadis and Kshetrayya padas fully with all the charanas and such other extra-ordinary compositions in the middle of a kutcheri, trying to bring out their meaning and feeling? Are they like the Swarajatis merely swara-structures? Do not they possess great poetic and musical qualities?"

[raagabox]

Excellent article, thanks for sharing it.

On a side note, I am reminded of my childhood days in Tirupati when Sri RAK's daughter was our neighbors, RAK stayed there with Smt Prabhavathi (daughter) for a good chunk of time. RAK was a legendary figure in Tirupati, when I was a very little kid growing up I used to visit Smt. Prabhavathi's home to play cricket with her son Raghu and remember seeing this large picture of Sri. RAK in their living room, still crystal clear in my not so photographic memory!

regards
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