KOCHI: Even one year after the sad demise of celebrated musician Mavelikkara R Prabhakara Varma, the connoisseurs as well as his disciples strongly feel his presence through the unique singing style popularised by the maestro. The disciples of Prabhakara Varma in association with Tripunithura Sree Poornathrayeesha Sangeetha Sabha will conduct a remembrance meet on November 7 at Kalikotta Palace.
Mavelikkara Prabhakara Varma was wedded to music and spent most of his time exploring the lyrical beauty of the compositions by great masters. Besides moulding young musicians, Varma also concentrated on popularising the compositions of Muthuswami Deekshithar. As the grandson of Kerala Panini A R Raja Raja Varma, he used his hereditary knowledge in Sanskrit to unveil the sublime sahitya hidden in the compositions of Deekshithar.
“He was very much interested in Kerala’s own style of singing that is followed in kathakali music,” says Padmaraju Thampuran, an ardent adorer of Varma.
This made Varma join hands with the gifted kathakali singer late Venmani Haridas to notate selected padams (excerpts) from famous kathakali stories like Nalacharitham, Kuchela Vrutham and Santhanagopalam,” he adds. This unique documentation was a real contribution for research scholars in kathakali sangeetham.
“We realised the potential of Prabhakara Varma when we organised an honouring meet on his seventy fifth birthday.
There was no formal invitation or media publicity about the event organised at the Thamaramkulangara Sree Dharma Sastha Temple. However by the evening the venue was filled with music buffs,” he says.
The humble and soft-spoken Varma was very popular with musicians and music students. As a teacher of Swathi Thirunal Music College and RLV College of Music and Fine Arts, he could popularise his unique singing style which gives more importance to the sahitya bhavam of compositions.
He always liked to be known as a good teacher rather than a good musician.
After his official teaching career Varma decided to convert his home into a music academy.
Though the narrative style varies according to Mavelikkara P Subrahmanyam or Kumarakerala Varma or Ponkunnam Ramachandran, we can enjoy the subtle music evolved by Varma through his decades long musical experience.
The remembrance meet will begin at 10.30 am at Kalikotta Palace and will be inaugurated by mrudangam maestro Mavelikkara K Velukkutti Nair and K Babu MLA will preside over the function.
Ranjini Suresh, Malini Hariharan, N P Ramaswami, K Pradeep, Kumarakerala Varma, T S Radhakrishnan and P Raviachan will deliver the felicitations.
In the evening a performance by renowned violinists V V Subrahmanyam, V V S Murari and Sunitha Harishankar will be staged as a tribute to Prabhakara Varma. Thrissur C Narendran will accompany on mrudangam and Tripunithura N Radhakrishnan will be on ghatam.
sivadasvarma@gmail.com
