Smt. Sudha Ramakrishnan full length concert
Smt. Sudha Ramakrishnan
Sudha started her music lessons with Sri Alleppey K.S. Sreekumar in Trivandrum at the age of 12. She also learned from Smt. Mythili Srinivasan, of Austin, Texas for a few years.
After a hiatus, she came under the able guidance of Smt Savitha Namuduri who rekindled her passion for a serious pursuit of music and introduced her to the manodharmam aspects of Carnatic music. She also teaches a small group of students and volunteers as the music coordinator for Chinmaya Mission, Dallas.
She is grateful to Prof. T. Unnikrishnan of Voice culture India for his guidance in voice modulation and techniques. Sudha resides in Coppell with her husband, Rajesh and two children, Aditya and Arundathi. She is a medical librarian by profession.
Sri Prasad Mantraratnam
Sudha is very blessed to be accompanied by a distinguished team. Violinist, Sri Prasad Mantraratnam, from Huntsville, AL, is originally from Warangal, Andhra Pradesh in India. He is the disciple of Sri Akella Mallikarjuna Sarma, a leading violinist in Andhra Pradesh. Prasad has been performing violin both as a Soloist & Accompanist since 1989. He has performed at several sabhas and organizations widely within India and abroad as well as in All India Radio & TV, both as a soloist and accompanist. He has provided violin accompaniment for senior musicians like his Guru Sri AkellaMallikarjuna Sarma, Chitraveena Ravikiran, Sr K.J.Yesudas, Nookala Chinna Satyanarayana, Hyderabad Brothers (Raghavachary &Seshachary), R.K.Srikantan, M.S. Sheela, Prapancham Sitaram, Sankaran Nambuthiry, and several others. He has also provided violin accompaniment for many Hindustani concerts, a few of them include Sangeetha Bandhopadhya, Anoop Barua, Arijit Mahalanabis, Preetham Bhattacharya and many more. Prasad has received scholarship from Indian HRD ministry in 1991 for advanced learning in Violin, which was awarded to about 8 persons in the field of Music. Prasad worked at ISRO satellite center, Bangalore, India for about 4 years and then joined Intergraph India (Hyderabad) where he worked for about 11 years before moving to Intergraph Corporation Headquarters at Huntsville AL in March 2008. Academically, Prasad has a Mechanical Engineering degree from JNTU Hyderabad and a Masters degree in Computer Science from Illinois Institute Of Technology, Chicago.
Sri Ganesh Devarajan
udha will be accompanied on the Mridangam by Sri Ganesh Devarajan. Sri Ganesh has been teaching Mridangam in the DFW metroplex since 1991 apart from accompanying local and Indian professional artists. Five of Ganesh's students support local vocalists in the DFW metroplex. All this has been possible for Ganesh because of his three excellent Gurus: Tiruvanathapuram Late Sri Krishna Iyengar, Madurai Late Sri Venkatakrishnan and Bangalore Late Sri Kesavan.
As a child Ganesh got a lot of training in accompanying his father and sisters in a home puja room setting. Ganesh owes everything to his late Father Madurai Sri Devaraja Iyer and his mother Smt Ganga Devarajan who were instrumental in kindling his interest in Carnatic music at a very young age. Ganesh is very keen to support the local talents in the DFW metroplex and is very happy to accompany Smt Sudha Ramakrishnan today. Ganesh is an engineer by profession and lives with his encouraging wife Uma and daughter Sungita in Plano TX.
Sri Shankar Krishnaswamy
Sri Shankar Krishnaswamy will be accompanying Sudha on the Kanjeera. Sri Shankar learnt vocal music under Smt. Sita Subramanium at Chennai and has always evinced keen interest in laya aspect of Carnatic music. He later took Kanjira training with Sri Manoj Siva and Sri Neyveli Venkatesh during their visits to the US.
He has developed into a Kanjira player mostly by listening to great stalwarts and imbibing their styles. As a percussionist trained in vocal, he is able to bring out a good following of the vocal and enhance the performance of the vocalist. He has accompanied artists in many performances in the metroplex and many youngsters during their arangetram.
Kum. Shalini Namuduri
Kum. Shalini Namuduri will be providing Tambura accompaniment to Sudha. Shalini is a student of Surabhi Music Academy and has been learning carnatic Vocal music for the past 10 years under the tutelege of her mother, Dr. Savitha Namuduri. She is very happy to support Sudha Aunty during her full - length concert.