Music Academy Prizes for performers 2017 Dec. season

[Sachi_R]

Dear folks.
I have seen the following here and elsewhere.Can someone post a complete list, please?
Amrutha Venkatesh
Arvind Soundararajan
J A Jayanth
Jayanthi Kumaresh

[humdinger]

Heard of below...
Smt. Manda Sudha Rani - Best Pallavi
Rajeev Mukundan - Best accomp. sr

[sais72]

The full list of prizes awarded is here - http://www.chennaidecemberseason.com/20 ... rizes.html

Wonder if there are just too many similar sounding prizes, some with identical titles.

[rajeshnat]

The full list of prizes awarded is here - http://www.chennaidecemberseason.com/20 ... rizes.html

Wonder if there are just too many similar sounding prizes, some with identical titles.

In first pass i thought so as it is gone back to years 2007 or before . It looks they have added two oustanding vocalists , after one best(yogam nagawamy). Also they have added best pallavi and outstanding pallavi for both senior and subsenior- there was just one now they have two . They have also added Best Team and Outstanding team awards where abhishek and RKM have got respectively along with their team. Ellarum they are getting like me saying good to very good to excellent to outstanding. In academy terminology best is higher than outstanding . Some times even morning artist get prizes as they are treated as evening I and Evening II artists . Few years back neyevli got yogam nagaswamy performing morning , now Manda sudha rani got Best Pallavi.

On a side note , the day I attended which was just 1 day . That day is a prize rich day . Ramakrishnan Murthy, Charumathu Raghuraman (Violin), N C Bharadwaj (Mridangam), N Guruprasad (Ghatam) got outstanding vocal concert. Junior Best Mridangam Artiste Prize: G S Nagaraj who played for aishwarya shankar and i heard few songs of Pattabhi Pandit who also got . Sangeetha Swaminathan gets again in sub senior , move up vidushi sangeetha swaminathan I donot know who will be out next year for you to make your way into evening I and II Slot.

[Nick H]

What a complicated thing to read through. Who worked with Unix? Remember the Man[ual] pages had something called the permutated index? I wonder...

[vasanthakokilam]

Did Amrutha Venkatesh walk away with the biggest prize money, given the number of endowments attached to the award she won? Or I am reading such attributions wrong?

If so, good for her, well deserved. Even If not, good as well, as frequent winner of these prizes at the academy her senior slot is more assured next year

[arasi]

Nick,
All that they have to do is to print the WINNERS names alone in a bolder type face! That simple, I think.

[Nick H]

That, plus some sensible grouping, yes. But this is not MA itself, is the list on the MA's site? Is it any better presented?

[Nick H]

Output of a quick script, undebugged, may have left lines out, may have invented lines! Attempts to list the artists followed by what they won. Leaves out the heading for groups, though, like Radel, so some sense is lost:

Abhishek Raghuram, B U Ganesh Prasad (Violin), Allapuzha Krishnan (Mridangam), Vazhapalli R Krishnakumar (Ghatam) --- Senior Best Vocal concert Prize
Amrutha Venkatesh --- Senior Outstanding Vocalist Prize
Anahita & Apoorva, Nagercoil K Anand (Violin), Gomathisankar (Mridangam) --- Junior Best Vocal Concert Prize
A S Murali --- Subsenior Best Pallavi Singing award
Dharini Veeraraghan --- Best female vocalist
G S Nagaraj --- Junior Best Mridangam Artiste Prize
Hemamalini Arni --- Best Lecture Demonstration
H Prasanna (Ghatam), Bhagyalakshmi M Krishna (Morsing) --- Senior Best Upa pakkavadyam
J A Jayanth --- Subsenior Flautist
Jayanthi Kumaresh --- Senior Veena Artiste Prize
Kalyanapuram S Aravind --- Junior best Vocalist
Kamalakiran Vinjamuri --- Junior best accompanying Violinist
K Gayathri --- Senior best vocalist of the season
Lakshmi Ramasubramanyam (Veena) --- Junior Best instrumentalist
Lalgudi GJR Krishnan & Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi --- Senior Best Instrumentalist Prize
Manda Sudharani --- Senior Vocal Prize for best Pallavi Singing
M Rajeev --- Senior Best Accompanying Violinist Prize
N Jayakrishnan, S Sai Rakshit (Violin), Gopal Ravindran (Mridangam) --- HCL Best Concert Prize
Poongulam Subramanyam --- Senior Best Mridangam Artiste Prize
Praveena Thodge --- Best Lecture Prize
Ramakrishnan Murthy, Charumathu Raghuraman (Violin), N C Bharadwaj (Mridangam), N Guruprasad (Ghatam) --- Senior Outstanding Vocal Concert Prize
Ranjani & Gayathri --- Senior Outstanding Vocalist prize
R Ashwath Narayan --- Subsenior Outstanding vocalist
R P Shravan --- Best Male Vocalist
Sandeep Narayan --- Senior Vocal Prize for outstanding Pallavi singing
Sangeetha Swaminathan --- Subsenior Outstanding lady vocalist
Shiva Ramamurthy --- Best Accompanying Violinist
S P Ananthapadmanabha --- Subsenior Best Accompanying Violinist
Sushma Somasekaran --- Junior Outstanding Vocalist
Trichur Brother Srikrishnamohan & Ramkumar Mohan, S P Ananthapadmanabha (Violin), Vijay B Natesan (Mridangam), Udupi Srikanth (Kanjira) --- Sub senior Best vocal concert
T S Pattabhirama Pandit --- Subsenior Best Vocalist
Vadavalli R Sriram --- Best Mridangam Artiste
Venkata Nagarajan --- Junior Best Male Vocalist
Vijay B Natesan --- Subsenior Best Mridangam Artiste
Vishaal Sapuram (Chitravina) --- Subsenior Veena Artiste Prize
Vivek Moozhikulam --- HCL Concert series Best individual Performance
V Sreeraman (Flute) --- Best Instrumentalist
Yoga Kirtana --- Best Individual Performance prize

[Nick H]

For the record, and for those who can do so much better without even thinking about it, basically a one liner...

awk -F\: '
{

# print "====" $0
print $NF " --- " $1
# print "================================"
} ' academy-awards-17.txt | sort

I pre-edited the data to get rid of the first colon in the line where there were two, and remove those group headings that this does not handle. The commented lines are just my debug code to check what is being turned into what. Awk was once a major part of my working day: I forgot.

[HarishankarK]

Output of a quick script, undebugged, may have left lines out, may have invented lines! Attempts to list the artists followed by what they won. Leaves out the heading for groups, though, like Radel, so some sense is lost:

Looks like everybody who performed got an award. Sort of like kids fancy dress. Encouragement is a good thing but this is a bit trivializing the whole awards thing

[rajeshnat]

Did Amrutha Venkatesh walk away with the biggest prize money, given the number of endowments attached to the award she won? Or I am reading such attributions wrong?

If so, good for her, well deserved. Even If not, good as well, as frequent winner of these prizes at the academy her senior slot is more assured next year

I am not sure if prize money is given for these awards other than sk and ska.Some one else can answer.These awards may not have had that much visibility say 15 years back but with internet forums and repeated discussions it is win win situation for those artists and the Academy .

In a general sense yes but with one exception.In Dec 2016 savitha narasimhan got the same outstanding vocalist , but in 2017 she was out despite the previous year prize. Savitha year on year for atleast 5 to 8 years till 2016 she always performed before sanjay slot in academy but that slot was taken by amrutha . There is a lot that happens which I am not aware, all my inputs are just reading web site schedules and page 2 of the hindu engagement . For sure amrutha will not have a savita'ish aberration of 2018 academy . I wish only the best with amrutha venkatesh who has an extremely great poise and vidwat .She has her own path apart from firm grounding with past and present great artists.

[rajeshnat]

Looks like everybody who performed got an award. Sort of like kids fancy dress. Encouragement is a good thing but this is a bit trivializing the whole awards thing

No HarishankarK you have misunderstood , few awards like HCL concert series awards are given and clubbed and activities of those are all done prior to season . It is not too much awards at all , at times with the mention of this many endownments it appears so. Personally I like them adding from this year Best Pallavi and Outstanding Pallavi . You all should get used to

[eesha]

Which ranks higher "best" palalvi or "outstanding" pallavi ?

[rajeshnat]

Which ranks higher "best" palalvi or "outstanding" pallavi ?

Since Best Vocalist is also tagged as Yogam nagaswamy which is considered very coveted . I think Best ranks higher than outstanding

[harimau]

Before N Murali took over, there were close to 200 awards that were given out annually. Some of them carried a purse amount of Rs 25! This was a carryover from early days when anybody could donate Rs 1000 or so and institute an award. You literally saw people running up to the stage to receive the award in time before the next awardee. Today, an offer of a couple of hundred thousand rupees to institute an award will be turned down by the Academy.

It was decided to rationalize these awards and they have come down to about 25 now. Several endowments are clubbed together and one award under some umbrella category is given out for these endowments. But you still get "Best Concert" and "Outstanding Concert" awards for each of the various time slots/categories such as Junior, Sub-senior and Senior.

When you had nearly 200 awards, with only about 80-85 concerts during the Season, you had many artists getting multiple awards. Then it was like a certificate for participation. Now it is better but they still need to consolidate further so that the awards make sense. Otherwise, we will see Jayanthi Kumaresh getting the Best Instrumentalist award year after year despite the raga pravaham type of concert she presented in Dec 2016, which caused me to walk out in the middle and left several connoisseurs shaking their heads wondering what had happened to her.

[mkausal]

Otherwise, we will see Jayanthi Kumaresh getting the Best Instrumentalist award year after year despite the raga pravaham type of concert she presented in Dec 2016, which caused me to walk out in the middle and left several connoisseurs shaking their heads wondering what had happened to her.

What was wrong with Jayanthi Kumaresh's concert in Academy in 2016? It was a classical concert which had every element - bhavam (expression), vidwat, planning and it indeed was a complete package.
Not sure what you mean by raga pravaham type concert, as I very well remember all the songs she played! There was at least one song by each of the Carnatic Trinity too!

• Karunimpa – Sahana (Varnam)

• Ekambresa Naayike – Suddha Saveri

• Sree Narada – Kaanada

• Ninnu vinaga mari dikkevarunnaru – PoorviKalyani

• Ragam Tanam Pallavi – Charukesi

• Akhilandeswari – Dwijavanthi

• Radha Sametha Krishna – Yamuna Kalyani

• Thillana – Kapi

[rajeshnat]

Otherwise, we will see Jayanthi Kumaresh getting the Best Instrumentalist award year after year despite the raga pravaham type of concert she presented in Dec 2016, which caused me to walk out in the middle and left several connoisseurs shaking their heads wondering what had happened to her.

Harimau,
As per their wordings ,The best instrumentalist is Lalgudi Siblings and best veena artist is Jayanthi . I guess may be they should call it outstanding insrumentalist and possibly given to veena . There is no other veena concert in either evening I or II or Morning . There was one veena scheduled in morning (forgot his name was that srinivasan or some name) and that slot was taken and got cancelled and went to papanasam ashok ramani. I am assuming even if academy had decided to give a best veena say even if Jayanthi played only nee nama roopamulaku , since there is only one veena artist the award for Best veena will only go to her. That does not take the class out of her. In my mind over the years i see three to four sets of artist(s) have tremendous influence over slots and awards .
All said and done , Academy creates a sadas and respects and contributes a lot to the art.

[kvchellappa]

Harimau will not be pleased unless they elect him as president emeritus of MA and give prizes to those at whom he points fingers because he got a kick from somewhere to do so.

[mkausal]

I guess may be they should call it outstanding insrumentalist . There is no other veena concert in either evening I or II or Morning . There was one veena scheduled in morning (forgot his name was that srinivasan or some thing) and that slot was taken by papanasam ashok ramani

I guess Chitravina also comes under Veena? Inferring that, because Vishal Sapuram got best Veena concert award this year in sub senior category, in which Ashwin Anand also played the Veena.

[rajeshnat]

I guess may be they should call it outstanding insrumentalist . There is no other veena concert in either evening I or II or Morning . There was one veena scheduled in morning (forgot his name was that srinivasan or some thing) and that slot was taken by papanasam ashok ramani

I guess Chitravina also comes under Veena? Inferring that, because Vishal Sapuram got best Veena concert award this year in sub senior category, in which Ashwin Anand also played the Veena.

Good catch Mkausal.

In sub senior you can say perhaps Vishal Sapuram playing chitraveena edged out Ashwin Anand Playing Veena
There is only one Flute in sub senior and that award went to Sub-senior Flautist: J A Jayanth

What happened to shashank , should we assume that he did not get it in Best Instrumentalist (senior) or they did not institute Best Senior Flautist and given it to shashank. What they did for Jayanth logically could have been taken to Shashank too?? Shashank had only competitor Jayaprada ramamurthy in morning

How about Vyasarpadi Kothandaraman he could have been given Best Nagaswaram .

I honestly believe Academy should just institute 2 awards namely Best and Outstanding instrumentalist and drop the vadhyam specific award. Make veena , flute, violin , nagaswaram and saxophone take up as contenders . All said academy is doing a great job .

[harimau]

I honestly believe Academy should just institute 2 awards namely Best and Outstanding instrumentalist and drop the vadhyam specific award. Make veena , flute, violin , nagaswaram and saxophone take up as contenders .

You are leaving out the keyboard, the kazoo and the didgeridoo.

All said academy is doing a great job

You forget to add "My blessings to the Academy's Executive Committee".

[harimau]

What was wrong with Jayanthi Kumaresh's concert in Academy in 2016? It was a classical concert which had every element - bhavam (expression), vidwat, planning and it indeed was a complete package.
Not sure what you mean by raga pravaham type concert, as I very well remember all the songs she played! There was at least one song by each of the Carnatic Trinity too!

• Karunimpa – Sahana (Varnam)

........

I don't care what the song list was. A group of us waited till the Tani avarthanam was over (out of respect for the percussion artists) and just ran out.

I had invited a visiting professor from Germany and seated him front and center. For the last several years, he has been listening only to veena music and his taste runs to musicians like S Srinivasan and Mudicondan S N Ramesh. He also has sufficient discernment to say that B Kannan's mastery over the veena is excellent but he couldn't find any sowkhyam (my word, not his; he only expressed that somehow it wasn't appealing to him) in his playing. I had given a good build-up to Jayanthi and said she was something he should listen to.

He kept shooting puzzled glances at me throughout the concert. I kept my eyes averted. He stayed till the end and called me at about 11:30 pm to discuss the concert. I saw the missed call the next morning as I had gone to sleep by then. I dared not call him for 3 days. He told me he had noticed that I had left in the middle of the concert and that he called his wife in Germany that night to discuss his disappointing experience. Yeah, he had to get something off his chest, I guess.

So, for some of us, it was a bad experience. I am glad you liked it. After all, tastes differ.

PS. I still went to Jayanthi's concert this Season at Raga Sudha Hall. I missed her Academy concert due to a conflict.

[harimau]

Harimau will not be pleased unless they elect him as president emeritus of MA and give prizes to those at whom he points fingers because he got a kick from somewhere to do so.

I would keep the award ceremony short and award all prizes to the tup-tup artist, earning your approbation in the process. Because that (your approbation) and 30 rupees would get me a cup of coffee at the Academy canteen.

[kvchellappa]

Harimau,
By the way, which ventriloquist is singing for Rama Varma? How can a royal person sing or compose?
The really deserving will refuse any prize from you.

[mkausal]

I don't care what the song list was. A group of us waited till the Tani avarthanam was over (out of respect for the percussion artists) and just ran out.

Liking or not liking a concert is a different issue. I still can't understand what you meant by Raga Pravaham type concert! The reason I could post song list was because it was not a Raga Pravaham concert!
If you had mentioned about not liking the concert, it is your personal taste and I wouldn't have commented. But you talked about the concert type, and hence curious about the idea! Would love to more for my personal understanding that what a Raga Pravaham concert means for you.

[kvchellappa]

It may happen after daru-pravaham of the rasika.