Palghat R. Raghu
| Palghat R. Raghu | |
|---|---|
| Born | Palghat Ramaswamy Raghu January 9, 1928 Rangoon, Burma |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. |
| Occupation | carnatic musician, percussionist |
| Parent(s) | Palghat Ramasamy Iyer, Ananthalakshmi Ammal |
Palghat R. Raghu (9 January 1928 – 2 June 2009) was a Carnatic musician and percussionist.
Early life
Palghat Ramaswamy Raghu was born in Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) to Palghat Ramaswamy Iyer and Ananthalakshmi Ammal. As a child, he was immensely talented and inducted into mridangam lessons very early in his life. His first mridangam lessons were from Tinniam Venkatarama Iyer and Trichy Raghava Iyer. Later he learnt the art from Palghat T. S. Mani Iyer, to whose niece, Swarnambal, he was married. He was a graduate of mathematics.
Technique
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Raghu was a percussion master known for his distinctive style in playing as well as his effortless finger techniques and technical brilliance. His unique style which involves imaginative use of the Toppi (left part of Mridangam) combines melody with rhythm and lifts the concert performance to high levels. Using different techniques, he adjusted his playing style to not only different artists and instruments but also captures the bhava and sahitya of music. His distinctive style is recorded in numerous concert tapes and CDs. The tani avartanams with other rhythm virtuosos such as Harishankar, Nagarajan (kanjira), Alangudi Ramachandran, T. H. "Vikku" Vinayakram, Subhash Chandran (ghatam), remain quite memorable to this day.
Awards
- Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1983
- Palghat Mani Iyer award (first recipient)
- Padma Shri in year 1985
- Mridangam Chakravarty award
- Kalaimamani (Tamil Nadu)
- Sangeetha Choodamani by Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai (1978)
- Mridangam Nada Mani (Shankaracharya)
- Nada Brahmam — award from Narada Gana Sabha( 2000)
- Nada Nidhi (2001)
- Sangeetha Kalanidhi (2007)
Legacy
Raghu toured extensively in Europe, USA, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore. He performed with artists such as Sitar Maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, Flute Hariprasad Chaurasia, Santoor Shivkumar Sharma and Alla Rakha in numerous concerts in India and abroad. He had also been involved in East-West fusion music. He had been visiting professor of music at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, San Diego State University and University of Berkeley. He regularly conducted advanced mridangam classes for the benefit of his students and upcoming mridangam artists.
Palghat Raghu's grandsons are carnatic musician Abhishek Raghuram and mridangam artist Anantha R. Krishnan .
References
External links
- Use dmy dates from December 2014
- Articles with hCards
- No local image but image on Wikidata
- 1928 births
- 2009 deaths
- Mridangam players
- Recipients of the Padma Shri
- Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
- Sangeetha Kalanidhi recipients
- Tamil musicians
- Wesleyan University faculty
- 20th-century Indian musicians
