CHENNAI: Governor K Rosaiah on Wednesday presented the Sangeet Natak Akademi Tagore Fellowships and Awards to eminent personalities from the Indian music, dance and traditional art fields at the Music Academy.
The awards and fellowships, instituted by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, were presented to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of poet and Nobel laureate Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.Quoting Tagore, Dr Rosaiah said, “It (art) is the response of man’s creative soul to the call of the real. Indeed, Tagore’s life as a writer seems to have been lived simultaneously as a musician, dramatist, actor and director of dance - a sort of multimedia artist - who would not be contained by the confines of words. He strove to always reach out beyond words through the act of performance.”
He also congratulated the doyens who were being awarded and expressed his happiness and gratitude towards their valuable contribution in promoting Indian art forms and music.
The 21 recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Tagore Fellowships were: B Rajanikanta Rao, Guruvayur Dorai, Kalanidhi Narayanan, MK Saroja, M Nagabhushana Sarma, MS Gopalakrishnan, Mankompu Sivasankara Pillai, Maya Rao, Natesan Ramani, Nedunuri Krishna Murthy, PK Narayanan Nambiar, PV Krishnamoorthy, Pasumarthy Venugopala, Krishna Sarma, R Nagarathnamma, RK Srikantan, Sripada Pinakapani, TR Kamala Murthy, V Ramamurthy, Vellore G Ramabhadran and Vyjayanthimala Bali.
Anasuya Devi, BM Sundaram, Bhagavathula Yagna Narayana Sarma, Bhagavathula Seetharama Sarma, Chatla Sreeramulu, Chemancheri Kunhiramani Nair, K Chellaiah, KM Raghavan Nambiar, Kumarapillai Velukutty Nair, Mayavaram Saraswathi, NS Jayalakshmi, Nattuvan Paramasivan Menon, Patraayani Sangeetha Rao, R Visweswaran, S Swaminathan, SRG Rajanna, Shrikrishna S Haldankar and Tanjavur Sankara Iyer were given the Sangeet Natak Akademi Tagore Awards.
Also present were Leela Samson, chairman of the Sangeet Natak Akademi; Shanta Serbjeet Singh, vice chairman of the Akademi and Helen Acharya, acting secretary of the Akademi. The function was followed by a presentation from the Madras Youth Choir.