MridangaMela: A Fusion Carnatic and Contemporary Music Performance

Anantha R. Krishnan started his musical journey on the mridangam, the principle drum of the Carnatic tradition. The grandson and disciple of the great mridangam maestro, Shri. Palghat R. Raghu, he first learned the fundamentals of the mridangam under his uncle, Shri. R. Ramkumar and then began an official tutelage under his grandfather at the age of five. He performed his first concert at the age of seven and before the age of twenty performed alongside a rare generation of Indian classical musicians like, Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Prof. T.N. Krishnan, Dr. KJ Yesudas, Mandolin Srinivas, among many others. During this period, he received numerous awards from traditional organizations of classical music in India. Most notably, he has won the categorical Best Mridangist Prize from the flagship institution for promoting classical Indian music, the Music Academy, Madras, five times. He was awarded the State of the Arts Award from the New Jersey government twice in 1997 and ­1998 as part of the National Endowment of the Arts' effort to promote cultural awareness in the U.S.A. In 1999, he was invited to perform for the Millennium celebrations in Berlin, Germany at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and at the EXPO 2000 in Hanover. A year later, he performed at the historic Sadler's Wells Music Festival in London. In fall of 2006, at the invitation of Fred Frith, the British experimental guitarist he performed for the seminal New Jazz Meeting for SWR 2, a national radio station in Baden Baden. In October of 2007, he was invited by Rudresh Mahanthappa to perform with the group, Samdhi, at the Festival of the Firsts in Pittsburgh, PA. In July of 2011, he performed in a Carte Blanche Artist Series at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam with the same group and was the first mridangam artist to appear in Carnegie Hall’s Shape of Jazz series in NYC, all with the group Samdhi. In May of 2008, he was a featured soloist in the Grammy nominated, Miles from India tour, which premiered in Town Hall, NYC presenting the great Miles Davis's music with Indian instrumentation featuring jazz legends: Ron Carter, Dave Liebman Lenny White, Ndugu Chancler, and Pete Cosey. In November 2014, he was invited to perform at the opening ceremony music for International Film Festival (IFFI)l in Goa and the closing ceremony of the National Games 2015 in Trivandrum with the actor danseuse Padmashri Shobana. In 2016 Spring, he was invited to perform with Ustad Zakir Hussain and the Masters of Percussion (MOP) through the United States and Europe. In 2018, MOP ensemble performed in Kathmandu to commemorate seventy year India- Nepal diplomatic relations. In May of 2018, Anantha performed with Kammern Ensemble- neue Musik for the prestigious Berliner Festspiele, MaerzMusik edition for the premiere of Memory Space by Alvin Lucier. Anantha holds a B.A. in Western Music and Philosophy from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Electronic Music and Percussion from Mills College, California. He is also a special interest student of tabla under Ustad Zakir Hussain. He appears on Intakt Records, Echo Music and ACT Records. He currently serves as faculty of percussion at A.R. Rahman's KM Music Conservatory in Chennai, India.

Charumathi Raghuraman is a young violin virtuoso in the Carnatic, South Indian music tradition. A precocious talent, she started learning first from her mother Smt. Rama Raghuraman, then continued formalised training with the respected Guru Smt. T.R. Balamani in Mumbai, and soon thereafter, at the suggestion of the iconic violinist of South India, Padma Bhushan Prof. T. N. Krishnan, Charumathi became his ardent disciple in 1995. She also studies Carnatic vocal music with the renowned teacher Padma Bhushan Sri. P. S. Narayanaswami. She played her debut concert along side Prof. T. N. Krishnan in 1998 and since then has been performing regularly both as a soloist and accompanist. The salient features of her musicianship include the rare combination of a pure sound and erudite content. She not only excels in the instrumental technique of the violin but is equally adept in reproducing vocal nuances mellifluously. She has been awarded the CCR&T, Govt. of India scholarship from the age of ten. She is the recipient of many awards; some of the notable ones include the ‘Kalki Krishnamurthy Memorial Award’ for the year 2016, ‘Ramabhadran Centenary Award’ for the Most Promising Young Musician of the Year 2013 from Tag Corporation, India; ’Young Achiever award’ from Rotary Club; ‘Best Violinist’ awards for the years 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2006, and the ‘Outstanding Young Violinist’ award in 2007-08 from The Music Academy (Madras); and ‘Best Violinist’ awards from various institutions like Narada Gana Sabha, Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, Indian Fine Arts Society etc. She is an ‘A grade' artist of the All India Radio and Doordarshan. Charu has traveled widely across India and abroad to perform in prestigious music festivals and institutions over the last 15 years. In 2011, Charu was invited to participate in The Woodford Folk Festival, an annual music festival held in Brisbane, Australia. A year later, Charu was part of a cultural delegation organized by ICCR (New Delhi) to tour Brazil. She also participated in a collaborative concert with the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, USA. In May 2016, Charu was invited to perform a solo concert at The Bhavan, London, as part of their Mandolin Shrinivas Memorial Concert Series. She has traveled widely for other performances in USA, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Middle East, Singapore etc. Academically, she holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Xavier Institute.

Viveick Rajagopalan is a musician and composer, straddling both worlds with equal ease. Trained under the Carnatic tradition on the majestic percussive instruments mridangam and kanjira, Viveick uses his classical roots to compose music that moves between many styles. His music is stamped with this unique sound, reflecting his influences from electronic, drum-n-bass to jazz and folk. His ability and determined diligence to retain the unique flavour of Indian music while seamlessly integrating it into his collaborations and performance, is unmatched among many other musicians of his time. His work has won him several awards, from the Most Mind Blowing Music Video Award at AVIMA in 2009 for ‘Snake in the City’, to Best Folk Fusion Artist Award at the Radio City – Freedom Radio Awards in 2013 for his single ‘Quest’. Over nearly 2 decades as performer and composer, Viveick has toured and collaborated with musicians from all over the world. He performed at the International Jazz Festival ‘96, Thailand, at the age of 18, along with Dinshaw Sanjana and a host of talented Jazz artists. He represented India at the Commonwealth Concert Tour in 2002 with Music director, Courtney Pine and other well-known musicians from the Commonwealth nations. Viveick is the disciple of Guru Shri T.S .Nandakumar. He is a musician and composer who is always seeking to push boundaries & obliterate them to make different sounds come together. He has collaborated with a galaxy of artists like Richard Bona, Bugge Wesseltoft, Chinese Man, Shri, Bauchklang and Lucky Ali to name a few. His Ta Dhom Project performed at some of the biggest festivals like WOMAD, OSLO MELA,SHAMABALA and lot of the other venues in UK and Europe. One of the most successful Bollywood films “Gully Boy” had his track India 91 which was inspired by the sound of “Ta Dhom Project”.