Shobana Vignesh, also known as Mahanadhi Shobana is a popular performing artist, holding a Doctorate in Music. She has several publications to her credit, of which two of them have been adapted as book chapters. With her practical experience as a performer, she captures her audience with the in-depth knowledge in many of the music forums.
Due to her stint as a child actor in a National Award winning movie, Shobana, a child prodigy, was tutored by doyens of music field such as PS Narayana Swamy, TR Subramanian and Swamimalai Janaki Raman . she has sung more than 130 albums, in various languages like Sanskrit, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.
Being a recipient of national scholarship from the government of India, she has also received an international honour (individual artist award) from the Maryland State Arts Council, USA for her artistic excellence in classical music. She is equally adept in Tamil language, which facilitated her to receive the title of Tamizhisai Vani from Atlanta Tamil Sangam, for her excellence in spreading Tamizhisai across the globe in the year 2011.
Her music is noted for its adherence to the musical tradition and her respect for the same is evident, in the way she handles the compositions with regards to the words and their pronunciatio, with unflinching loyalty, to the raga bhava and the artha bhava.
Her recent performance at Bharath Kalachar titled Sarvam vishnu mayam jagath in different languages to the accompaniment of violin, sitar, tabla, mridangam and ethnic percussion , be it Brocheva Revaru of Mysore Vasudeva Chariar in Kamas Ragam with Chitta swaram in two kalams or the abhang by Eknath in Lalith and Kalavathi Ragas.
She says, “I consider myself greatly blessed to have had an inspiring tutelage, which instilled in me not just the greatness of the art, but also values of high order.”
With sheer dedication, grit and conviction, she is ascending the ladder of sucess, which is certainly worthy of emulation by contemporary musicians .no doubt, her involvement in social service programmes with several non-profit organisations both in the country and US and her contribution through fund raising events, including her performance for the relief of tsunami victims, for aids awareness programmes. She has also been part of several charity concerts abroad, including the one at Malaysia for the welfare of the spastic children, have won her laurels and several honors, which would keep her in good stead, to receive national honours.