T.Brinda - A sum total of the Carnatic aesthetic tradition

[Singer_USA]

From Savita Narasimhan's article,

The early training Brinda received from her mother Kamakshi, her grandmother, the legendary Veena Dhanammal, and her tutelage under Kanchipuram Naina Pillai, gained her, besides a formidable repertoire, a unique style of music that blended the brisk, gripping and powerful with the delicate, tranquil and intricate. She was a storehouse of many rare compositions of the Trinity as well as innumerable padams and javalis that were rendered with an effortless sheen that comes only with a unique understanding of raga music. Today, she is almost synonymous with the works of the Trinity, Subbaraya Shastri, the padams of Ksehtragna and Ghanam Krishna Iyer, and the javalis of Dharmapuri Subbarayar, Pattabhiramaiyya and Patnam Subramania Iyer, thanks to her matchless style of rendering compositions such as Rama Rama (Bhairavi), Ososi (Mukhari), Moratopu (Sahana), Payyada (Nadanamakriya), Yala padare (Begada), Mosamaya (Ahiri), Sakhi prana (Chenjuruti), Smara sundaranguni (Paras), Adi neepai (Yamunakalyani) and many more. One never tires of listening to these renditions and is constantly awed afresh by the unusual approach to each raga in these compositions.


Here is the link for the complete article.
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/music/arti ... QhE.mailto

[mohan]

nice article - can it be moved to the Brinda and Mukta thread under Vidwans and Vidushis?

[padavarnam]

The article as such is nicely written, however, there have been some omissions of some of her disciples who learnt directly from her or sang with her as support singers. Might have been edited due to want of space. It may be noted that, Nagalakshmi Lakshmanan ( Known as Shobana), also the sister of V.Subramananiam ( Semmengudi school) sang with her for a few years, Ritha Rajan, though mainly a disciple of Ramnad Krishnan also learnt from her and sang a few concerts. Alamelu Mani ( mother of Ghazal singer Hariharan) and Geetha Raja ( cousin of Aruna Sairam ) are other major students from the Mumbai area. Kiranavali Vidyashankar ( also the sister of Ravikiran) was the one singing with her towards the end of her career. Chitravina Ganesh ( one of the Carnatica brothers ) too learnt directly with others in the Kiran family. Several leading musicians and gurus like Late Sri T.K.Govinda Rao, Prof. S.R.Janakiraman, Probably R.Vedavalli( not sure if she learnt from her or only Mukta amma),Suguna Varadachari, Suguna Purushothaman, Tadepallai Lokanatha Sharma like prof. T.R.Subramaniam learnt from her when she was serving the music college. A tribute to this legend of music in the Hindu,who Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer had described as essence of Carnatic music, is most befitting particularly during the season.

[tyagarajadasa]

Smt. Kalyani Sharma is another, lesser known Vidushi from Mumbai who learnt from Brindamma along with Alamelu Mani.