CHENNAI: Lalitha and Nandini have been together through performances and practice, tours and tribulations, albums and experimentations. They started performing Indian classical, world music, fusion and western classical as a duo and in fact, continue till date.
Ask them why, and they say, the instrument has always been considered as an accompaniment but they wanted to elevate it to a solo status.
“We both perform only as solo artistes or as a duo and we don’t accompany anyone. We want the violin to get a celebrated status all over the world,” they say.
Granddaughters of the late Lakshminarayana Iyer, they are nieces of the celebrated violinists L Subramaniam, L Shanker and L Vaidyanathan, representing the fourth generation of their lineage. Also, they are the first Indian women conductors from South India to have conducted the Boschbela string orchestra in South Africa.
Recently, Lalitha and Nandini were back in the city after having collaborated with the Grammy Award-winning double violin maestro L Shanker and rock star Mike Albert, guitarist from the famed Megadeth — an American thrash metal band from Los Angeles.
Lalitha and Nandhini were among the first South Indian musicians to perform live and be interviewed on BBC Radio 3. The sisters say they have always been excited about being different.
Lalitha, holds a PhD in Indian Music from the University of Madras and Nandini holds a triple Master’s Degree in Information Science, Indian Music and Ethnomusicology
“We complement each other well, though we have our own individual styles. Music is the only thing we agree on, about everything else we are at loggerheads all the time,” says Nandini with a laugh.
Lalitha says the violin is a universal instrument that easily adapts itself to every style of music.
Currently, under the Production Grant, supported by the Ministry of Culture, Govt of India, Lalitha has been presenting a series of episodes on ‘Musical Instruments in Divinity’, a thematic multimedia presentation featuring various rare instruments every month.
“The series involves extensive research and an in-depth study, as it deals with the history, evolution of the instruments, mythological-sculptural evidence, usage in temple rituals, similarities in global musical culture, references in literature and some in musical composition,” says Lalitha.
Lalitha, the director of the MS (Muthuswamy-Subbulakshmi) Academy of Global Music, says that the series will also deal with rare instruments like shehnai, shawm, charumera from the Japanese musical tradition, mizmar from Arabic Music, suona from China, taepyeongso from Korea, piffero from the north-west Italian Apennines.
“The instruments covered so far include the vina, venu, gethuvadyam, mridangam, mridanga, khol, chenda, chande, tutari, srnga, kombu, Jewish shofar, damaru and udukkai,” adds Lalitha.
Talking about how they plan the recitals together, they say, “Indian audiences are different from those that are abroad. When we are here, we make it a point to play Carnatic music. We don’t mix the other styles.” The sisters have also performed with Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan, Ronu Majumdar, Abhijit Banerjee and Tarun Bhattacharya, to name a few, and were selected as cultural ambassadors with Fulbright and Charles Wallace Trust Fellowships, in the US and UK.
“Though we perform together, we have our parts as soloists too in a duet concert. Despite our individual sensibilities, both of us are inseparable,” say the sisters.
Published: 27th November 2014 06:00 AM
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