CHENNAI: To recognise Carnatic music and musicians, Maharajapuram Vishwanatha Iyer Trust gave away the Viswanatha Iyer Memorial Awards for 2017 at a function held recently at Srinivasa Sastri hall, Mylapore. TV Gopalakrishnan, musician and Nagai Muralidaran, violinist, attended the event. “The trust has always been a great platform for budding artistes who want to make it big,” said TV Gopalakrishnan.
The award, including a gold medal and cash prize of `25,000, was presented to Tanjore R Kumar by TV Gopalakrishnan. The Maharajapuram Vishwanatha Acharya Iyer Award was given to Mysore Nagamani Srinath, while the Maharajapuram Vishwanatha Iyer Award for senior musicians was presented to Ritha Rajan, Vasantha Kannan and C N Chandrasekhar. Ashwath Narayanan, Shreya Devanth and Akshay Anantha -padmanabhan Maharajapuram won the Vishwanatha Iyer Youth Excellence Award.
“I am very proud of the awardees and their work, and am extremely happy that the youth give so much importance to Carnatic music these days,” said Naagai Muralidharan.
Gopalakrishnan said that technological developments in music have been really handy as songs can be instantly recorded whereas it took days for the process during his days. “Aspiring musicians and students are blessed beyond measure in this regard,” he added.
The guests also went down memory lane and shared a lot of nostalgic moments from their days of composing and performing on stage. Later, the awardees spoke about their experiences and also thanked their gurus for guiding them.