Carnatic music has a niche audience in Kerala, and coalescing the barriers of diversity, the classical art is being enjoyed by all listeners alike here, says Sudheer Warrier, the distinguished classical musician from Chennai. The musician, who holds the credit of having associated with many stalwarts of music like K J Yesudas, Hariharan, Shanker Mahadevan and K S Chithra, performed at his first concert in the city yesterday at TDM Hall.
Observing that it is a soul-satisfying experience to hold a concert in Kerala thanks to the warm reception the musicians receive, Sudheer says he has only seen such appreciation in Chennai, which is renowned for its musical heritage.
“Singing is the most gratifying profession, that cannot be compared to any other vocation,” says the vocalist-singer-music director whose latest accomplishment is that he has rendered a song, ‘Kuruvi Padariya Dinam...’ in the recent Malayalam release, ‘Kaash’. Sudheer has earlier lent his voice for the classical portions of some Tamil movies like ‘Anniyan’ and ‘Chellame’.
Being in the classical music scene must be the reason why Sudheer is not deterred by the fact that some of the film songs that he has sung had not appeared when the films released. “I have sung for Malayalam films earlier as well, but somehow that didn’t turned out well,” says Sudheer.
“Singing for films is less arduous, that can never be compared to the classical recitals, which are all based on ‘manodharmam’,” observes Sudheer adding that music direction is a really challenging task. Sudheer was the music director of albums like ‘Kaniponnu’ rendered by K J Yesudas, ‘Traditional Lullabies of Kerala’ for which he gave his voice along with K S Chithra and ‘Cosmic Music’, based on the Ashtapadi by Jayadeva, sung by Hariharan, Shanker Mahadevan, Vijay Yesudas and Sujatha. He has an audio consulting company, ‘Green Audio’ at Chennai.
Because of his ardent passion for music, Sudheer had opted out the traditional Science subjects and selected music as his main subject for higher studies. The music aficionado who holds a bachelors, masters and MPhil in music is now pursuing his PhD. Rare ragas in Kathakali form the subject of his research.
Having vowed to garner a thorough knowledge in the subject, he also had his share of informal musical training from proficient teachers like K S Sangeetha, Veena Venkattaraman and many others. Sudheer has received many accolades for his musical contributions including recognition from the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi.