JOIN USA tribute to six decades of musical journey
For 60 long years, the Rudrapatnam Brothers (R N Thyagarajan and R N Tharanathan) have been performing at concerts, enthralling the audience with their classical Carnatic vocals. Experienced enough to sing on any theme at any given time, they are the senior most duet singers today.
To mark their six decades of musical journey, their disciples have organised an event to fete the two legends of Carnatic music. Brinda Rao, who has been a student of Thyagarajan for over 12 years, has penned a short biography of the brothers which will be released at the ceremony on Saturday. The event will be held at Sri Ramamandira Hall in Malleswaram.
Titled ‘Apoorva Kriti Manjari’, the first-half of her book has compositions by several great singers annotated by Thyagarajan and the second-half of the book has the biography. The disciples of Rudrapatnam Brothers including those living abroad, will attend the programme.
Speaking to Deccan Herald, Dr R N Tharanathan said: “There has been a sea change in the audience over the past 60 years. These days people care more for the artist than the art. They are only interested in star value and gimmicks”.
Adding to this, his elder brother R N Thyagarajan said: “Earlier, if the concert was to start at 6.30 pm, the audience used to be seated at 4 pm waiting eagerly. Now, even the duration of the concerts has been reduced from over four hours to two hours or even less.”
With the legacy of music running for more than three generations in their family, the brothers started giving concerts in 1956 - even before receiving a formal training - at a tender age of 13 and 10 respectively. After a few concerts, their father, R K Narayanaswamy, and uncle, R K Venkatrama Sastry, started giving them formal training in the classical Carnatic vocal and that is how their journey began. Music was not their only interest.
Thyagarajan worked as a mathematics lecturer in Mysuru for six years after which he joined the All India Radio and retired as deputy director. Dr Tharanathan was a senior scientist and an additional director at the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysuru. The brothers have always performed together.
“The only time I sang alone was on the radio when I was in Chennai AIR and my brother was in Mysuru”, recalled Thyagarajan.
The brothers have performed all over the country and even abroad - the US, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, UAE - among others. They have been accompanied by top-ranked violinists like M Chandrasekaran and M S Gopalakrishnan. Talking about present-day young Carnatic singers, Dr Tharanathan said, “They are very talented but they look for shortcut to success. After a few days of training they want to give concerts. Carnatic music requires years of training and dedication.” The Rudrapatnam brothers are known for the pure form of their music - not tweaking it to pull crowds.
Lamenting lack of knowledge about classical music in people today, they said: “The biggest change in classical Carnatic music is that audience today do not know what a chaste or a true Carnatic music is. The government is of no help in this respect. Instead of promoting our culture at major fests like the Dasara, they pay lakhs of rupees to invite movie stars and singers.”