Vaadhya kalAnidhi and laya kalaanidhi awards

[sam]

Vaadhya kalAnidhi and laya kalaanidhi awards
...
Since 2000, when Smt.Vedavalli was awarded Sangita KalAnidhi title, sikkil sisters, Bombay Sisters(2010)(Smt.Saroja and Smt.Lalitha), Smt. Sudha Ragunathan, Kanyaakumari- violinist ,Smt..aruNA sairAm ,Smt.Sowmya and Smt. Bombay Jayasree have won the prestigeous award.

I think, vocalist/violinist , veeNa lady artistes, like RanjaniGayathri, akkarai Subbulakshmi, amrutha venkatesh, amrita muraLi and a few more deserve the award.
Why not have separate awards for lady artistes, instrument players, percussion experts, in each category, each year, just as we have nruthya kalAnidhis?

During the past 25 years, about 5 or 6 awardees have been percussion experfs.
And an equal number has gone to instrument players...
.
As shown in the list.
2000 Vedavalli Vocalist
2001 Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman Mridangam player
2002 Sikkil Sisters (Neela & Kunjumani) Flute players

2003 T. V. Sankaranarayanan Vocalist
2004 Vellore G. Ramabhadran Mridangam player
2005 M. Chandrasekaran Violinist
2006 T. N. Seshagopalan Vocalist, Veena Player, Harikatha artiste
2007 Palghat R. Raghu Mridangam player

2008 A. K. C. Natarajan Clarinet player
2009 Valayapatti A. R. Subramaniam Thavil player.
2010 Bombay Sisters (C. Saroja and C. Lalitha) Vocalists
2011 Trichy Sankaran Mridangam player
2012 Trichur V. Ramachandran Vocalist
2013 Sudha Ragunathan Vocalist
2014 T. V. Gopalakrishnan Vocalist / Mridangam player
2015 Sanjay Subrahmanyan Vocalist
2016 A. Kanyakumari Violinist
2017 N. Ravikiran Slide instrumentalist (Chitravina), Vocalist, Composer
2018 Aruna Sairam Vocalist, Collaborator, Composer
2019 S. Sowmya Vocalist.
2020 Neyveli Santhanagopalan Vocalist, Composer
2021 Thiruvarur Bakthavathsalam Mridangam player
2022 G. J. R. Krishnan, Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi Violinists.
2023 Bombay Jayashri Vocalist
2024 T. M. Krishna Vocalist
2025 R. K. Shriramkumar Violinist .
.
Are we perhaps shifting the meaning of sangeetham from melody and sAhithyam to layam and melody?
Let us have awards for vocal music, instrument music, percussion, upanyasam and dance., EACH YEAR.

Why not?

[shankarank]

appa...., vAdhyamum, layamum sangItatilE sErthi illEngarIngaLA?

[sam]

Melody is the essence of music. Melody plus saahithyam is the essence of carnatic music. Hence instrumental music is music. But does not do full justice to vaaggeyakaras. Only vocal music gives melody with saahithyam.
Percussion is at best supplementary,

[arasi]

Instrumentalists certainly need to be awarded, and they needn't wait long for their turn just because it's the vocalists who traditionally lead a concert. Yes, if only the MA can come up also with an Instrumentalist award each year (vAdya Kalanidhi)!

The view that vocalizing lyrics alone makes a vocalist supreme, I do not concur with. Yes, in most concerts, the vocalist with the music and lyrics reigns on stage, but imagine her/his power of soloing it on stage, and our accepting a concert without the pakka (pakkA) vAdyams supporting them!

Also, there are several center stage instrumentalists to consider. This additional award would bring into the honoree list more main, pakka, upa pakkavAdya musicians.

You can also have two KalAnidhis heading/taking turns at the morning sessions!

[mridhangam]

May years ago I suggested that there has to be 3 or 4 Kalanidhi awards per year so that you can cover all the vidwans, since there has been a real explosion of vidushis and vidwans and all of them sing very well too. So I suggest there can be 3 SKs every year to cover vocal/instrumental mains (like veena/flute/chitravina etc), Violinist and Percussionists. This way down the line in about 30 years every current musician would be an SK.

[hnbhagavan]

Music Academy Awards,

Most alarming fact is that non Tamil Nādu Musicians are not selected for the awards - except Sangeeta Kala Acharya.
The big award always to Musicians from Chennai. T V Gopalakrishnan and A KanyaKumari may be considered as outsiders, but for all practical purposes they are from Chennai. After Nedunuri Krishna Murthy and R K Srikantan there are no Musicians outside of Chennai for the award.
Hyderabad Brothers in their peak time richly deserved recognition. Hope Wise counsel may prevail to recognize D Rangachari the surviving brother for the awards
The proposed new awards are welcome ,but perhaps monetary considerations to institute so many awards need more sponsorship.

[rajeshnat]

After Nedunuri Krishna Murthy and R K Srikantan there are no Musicians outside of Chennai for the award.
Hyderabad Brothers in their peak time richly deserved recognition. Hope Wise counsel may prevail to recognize D Rangachari the surviving brother for the awards

Musicians have to live bit more atleast 78 to say whether they were denied or given. Palakkad raghu got at the age of 79 and he moved on when he was 81. YOu missed mentioning Pinakapani who also got SK

Unfortunately this extraordinary musician seshachari passed away when he was 67 years . Unquestionably Hyderabad brothers should have been given SK and other younger musicians like Sowmya, TMK , RKSK,BJ all could have waited one more year. Possibly if Seshachari lived upto another 12 years he may have got it with the other brother.

Dont worry from andhra land Malladi brothers and bit later pantual rama will get it for sure. We lost quite a lot of possible candidates due to infamous me too.

Do remember Musicians outside of Chennai from andhra even Rallapalli Ananta Krishna Sharma whose major work was unearthing from copper plates the annamacharya krithis got SK in 197x.

WE have talked so much who missed , who did not got it all that is there say 15 to 20 years back. Personally SK awardees are ok , bottomline we all have to wait till the vidwan/vidushi reaches the age of 78 to complain . In any case SK does not have that much charm as what it used to be.

[hnbhagavan]

RajeshJi,

Yes i did miss a name or two. But if you scan from the year 2000 Onwards, outside Chennai Vidwans/Vidushis d not figure.
Madam T S Satyavathy from Bangalore was awarded Acharya as well as MS Sheela. Madam Satyavathy deserved or deserves to be Kalanidhi's .Vidwans are recognized late as you pointed out Palghat Raghu, V Gopalakrishnan.V V Subramanyam will not be conferred the award. Even Vijaya Siva is not getting it as he is not scheduled or some extra ordinary patch up happens. Malladis,Mysore Brothers may find their place in due course.

[Sundara Rajan]

This is not a new topic. I have been suggesting for many years that at least TWO awards, one for vocal and another for Instrumental artists should be awarded every year in order to cover all the deserving artists, whose number is becoming aplenty over the years.
In fact, now there are many young artists who outshine some veterans who were awarded in the past! With all the politics involved in the Madras Music Academy, very soon any award by this organization will become worthless, in my humble opinion.