THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Disciples, fans and family members of Carnatic music legend the late Neyyattinkara Vasudevan have come together to keep his memories alive. The Neyyattinkara Vasudevan Foundation, titled Manirang, was launched at Theerthapadamandapam here on Tuesday.
The Foundation was inaugurated by Minister for Education and Culture M.A. Baby. Manirang is the apt name for the Foundation, for it was the favourite raga of Neyyattinkara, the Minister said. Girija Vallabhan, a foundation engineer based in the US, handed over the first donation amount of Rs one lakh for the Foundation to the Minister.
The first meeting of the Foundation decided to organise a number of programmes in connection with the first death anniversary of the musician on May 13. Commemorative lecture, musical tribute by his disciples and concerts have been planned, in addition to the launch of Manirang website and the release of the study report on the Carnatic musicians in Kerala and the Sangeetha Sabhas.
Music historian Krishnamoorthy of Tripunithura has been assigned with the task of preparing the biography of Neyyattinkara. The meeting also decided to cooperate with the making of a documentary on the musician by Lenin Rajendran.
For the conduct of the anniversary programmes, an organising committee has been constituted with Prof Vaikom Venugopal as chief coordinator, Chandrababu, Vinod and Thiruvananthapuram Ravindran as joint coordinators, Thiruvananthapuram Surendran as convener and Mukhathala Sivaji and Cherthala Jayadevan as joint convener.