Vocalist K Omanakutty has won several coveted awards from various institutions all over India, including Best Singer, Isai Mani Makudam and the Sangeetha Sampoorna Award. This vocalist, a professor in the Department of Music, Kerala University, has several publications to her credit. They are on topics relating to music, including a ‘Treatise on Music Therapy’. She is a top grade artiste when in comes to classical music and has performed in Akashvani and Doordarshan. In fact, she is the only top grade woman artiste from Kerala in the last 12 years.
This doctorate holder in music was here in the city recently to perform for Kalakshetra at its festival. Her evocative vocal effusion, through the influence of her sampradaya training, was striking. Normally, in order to attract rasikas, one would have to turn their back on the dull periphery of ‘formula exposition’ but this vocalist struck to tradition.
Her rendition, Suma Sayaka of Swathi Thirunal in Kapi raga (rupakam) and Pannage Sayana Pahimam in the raga Pharaz (misra-chapu) of the same composer, brought out the fascinatingly beautiful lyrical content of the songs.
Her Kaanada raga exposition and her Mamava of Swathi Thirunal in Rupakam, which came after a sensitive alapana – the manodharma in Swara-Niraval was interesting. One had a feeling that the higher she went on the pitch, the melody had been compromised. But her perserverance to hold fast to the virtue of carnatic music, evoking the soundness of tradition and the nuances of the raga Kalyani, was very apparent.
One thing was evident – the accent of the vageyakaras might vary, but we can usually discover their vision by the expression musicians give to the kritis. This concert at the Kalakshetra revealed her simpled style of musical expressions, delivered with evocative imagination.
This doctorate holder in music says with justifiable pride, “I was a former member of the board of studies in various Kerala universities and a ‘guru’ to the cultural talent scholarship holders at the Centre for Cultural Resources. I have designed the curriculum in a way that suits the needs of the day. This has won the appreciation of composers and musicians and aided suiting the needs of the day. It has also aided my research and documentation of the compositions of several composers from Kerala. My research on 1000 years of Malayalam poetry is receiving rave reviews.”
Omanakutty has done music concerts in various countries like USA, Spain and UAE, among others. One of her unforgettable experiences, she says, is her taking classes at the University of Spain, under the cultural exchange programme.
