BENGALURU: MD Pallavi was born into a family of artists, musicians and theatre personalities, including AN Subbarao, who was an artist and the founder of Kalamandir. So it comes as no surprise that she says, “I enjoy doing multidisciplinary work.” Having always been around music, poetry, literature, dance and puppetry since childhood, she says, “It’s natural that I was drawn towards different fields.” Pallavi, who is a singer, actor, filmmaker and a sound designer, will be presenting a musical evening of bhavgeet in the city on Sunday, along with violinist Mysore Karthik.
In the upcoming concert, the vocalist will be reciting poems of famous poets Kabir, Kuvempu, Meera, Akka, Amir Khusrao and Shishunala Sharif. “I am going to present them (the poems) on a loop station, a device that plays music repetitively,” she says. The concert will also feature the young violinist Mysore Karthik, son of Mysore Nagaraj of the Mysore Nagaraj-Manjunath duo. “It’s the first time I’m collaborating with him. He will be playing Carnatic music and I will present bhavgeet in Urdu, Kannada, Tamil and Marathi in Hindustani music. It will be an interesting conversation between us,” Pallavi adds.
The Hindustani vocalist was conferred the Karnataka State award for best playback singer in 2007 for the movie Duniya. But films, she says, has never been her final career destination. “I sung a handful of film songs and those ones, fortunately, have created an impact.
I don’t want to restrict myself to a particular industry. I’m happy as a theatre artiste and I don’t see it as a stepping stone to films. If there is interesting work, or the idea is fresh, then I will do it irrespective of the industry it belongs to,” explains Pallavi, who recently played the role of Ponni Shanmugam, one of the women scientists behind the success of Mars mission, in Radha Bharadwaj’s to-be released English film, Super MOMs. “I also direct plays, do sound design and edit films. I’m just using different skills to make this journey more beautiful,” she says.
Though the artiste has bagged many accolades and awards, there is one that is closest to her heart. “My most memorable achievement is when I got Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar in the ‘Other Major Traditions of Music’ category for contribution to the musical genre, specific to Kannada. That’s a huge honour and it’s in the name of musician I admire,” she says.
M D Pallavi’s upcoming bhavgeet event, in collaboration with Mysore Karthik, will be held on November 3 at 7pm at The Courtyard, KH Double Road, Shanti Nagar.