Dr RS Jayalakshmi & Kum Charulatha Chandrasekhar - veena duet

Melbourne Veena Festival 2022 is co-presented by MKS Spices'n things and The Boite, Melbourne.
/ theboite
This year's festival icelebrates the centenary of Mahamahopadhyaya Padmasri Dr Emani Shankara Shastry.
The festival's 2022 Digital Edition is proud to present a grand veena duo by Dr RS Jayalakshmi and her grand-daughter and disciple Kum Charulatha Chandrasekhar, supported on the mridangam by Sri Melakaveri K Balaji.
Dr. RS Jayalakshmi is a well-known Vainika, Guru, Research Scholar and Musicologist. She has been associated with Indian Carnatic Music for the past 55 years
Dr. RS Jayalakshmi was born to Sri. Subramaniya Iyer and Janaki Ammal on 8th July 1950. The young Jaya, as she was fondly called, used to sit during the classes for her elder sister. She used to sing quite well just by observing her sister sing. Sri Subramaniya Iyer sensed the interest of the child and inducted her into Vocal training. Iyer had a Veena Shop in Pondy Bazaar, T.Nagar. He had Veenas at home as well. Jaya, as a child would sit at the instrument and would reproduce what she had learnt in Vocal on the instrument, simply having seen her father tune and play the instrument to check it. Iyer then encouraged young Jaya to train on the Veena as well. Jaya started her initial formal training on Veena from V. Raghavan. She learnt for around 5-6 years by which time she had become quite proficient on the Veena. Jaya used to perform at a number of sabhas and venues subsequently.
From a formal music education standpoint, Jaya did a Teacher’s Training Course from The Music Academy. Further, by virtue of qualifying for the Government of India Scholarship, she got to train under Sri. R. Pichumani Iyer for a period of two years. Eventually, she applied for the Veena Assistant post at the Music Department of University of Madras and was appointed for the same. She was in service for 33 years and grew to become a Lecturer before taking retirement. During the course of these years, she had trained innumerable students who have become quite successful in Music. She had completed her Doctorate in Music during these years. She had also guided scores of students for their research work and doctoral theses. Being a learner herself, she trained under the legendary T. Muktha on Padams and Javalis.
She has over the years performed at different venues, had done number of presentations/talks about music, done lecture-demonstrations and conducted number of workshops.
She has got numerous awards and recognitions during her career. Some notable ones include ‘Senior Musician’ Award by Narada Gana Sabha, “Senior Veena Artist” and “Musicologist” award by the Music Academy, “Acharya Ratnakara” award by Shri Bhairavi Fine Arts, Cleveland USA and “K S Narayanaswamy Veena Vidwan Award” from Shanmuganandha Sabha, Mumbai.
An A Grade artist with AIR, she is at present part of the teaching faculty of the Advanced School of Music run by The Music Academy Chennai and faculty of Haridoss Giri School of Music of Narada Gana Sabha. Chennai. She is also the Teaching Faculty and Chairperson at the University of Silicon Andhra, California USA.
Charulatha Chandrasekar started learning Veena under the tutelage of her grandmother, Dr. R. S. Jayalakshmi, an eminent Musician-Teacher-Musicologist, at the age of 6 years.
She started performing on stage from the age of 9 year itself.
She has participated in several competitions and won several prizes and some awards listed later. She has also over 200 cutcheries to her credit over the years. She has performed at a number of venues and events in Chennai, notably, The Music Academy, Bharathiya Vidhya Bhavan, Raga Sudha Hall, Mudra-Infosys Hall, Arkay Convention Center, Kalakshetra, Nada Sudha-Velachery, Narada Gana Sabha, the Veena Festival each year organized by Dr. B Kannan amongst others.
Outside of Chennai, she had performed at several venues in Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Malaysia, and Indian Raga Labs(for Online)
She has performed over 80 concerts online on Facebook and TH-cam in the last couple of years during the pandemic.

[@karuppiahsellapan690]

❤🎉 thanks for both of you

[@indrakantilakshmi6122]

Kumari charulatha, and madam's combination of begada ragam thanam keerthana nadopasana Amazing🙏🙏 neravu and swarakalpana amazing.

[@shobhasekhar.kalakruthi]

Sangitha Acharya designate Dr RS Jayalakshmi excels in bringing the Sukha Bhavam and melodious sound of Veena. Her disciple and grand daughter has prodigious talent,

[@vaidehivp3884]

Ragam,thaanam,Pallavi excellent 👌👌👌

[@sundaramsastry5700]

An hour and forty minutes of pure bliss. Thanks a lot to all the artists.

[@DurgaDas-sm5mf]

🎵🎶🎼🎵🎶🎼🎵🎶 👌👌 🤗🤗

[@gulabiraghu2035]

om namaha shhivaa,

[@syam57]

Amazing!!!

[@Ranganayakam]

What azhuttam !👏🙏

[@suseelamanidhar1928]

Soulful music

[@indrakantilakshmi6122]

We enjoyed listening the excellent performanc🙏🙏

[@prabharamji8050]

Awestruck 🙏❤️

[@scottlockard389]

Excellent!

[@anuradhasreenivasan9444]

I enjoyed listening to the performance!👏🏼

[@Classical.Music.Indian]

A few additional cameras capturing the artist’s expressions and the instruments handling would have taken the viewers closer to the spirit of Veena

[@padminidivakaran6013]

L

[@prabhavathivijayaraghavan1342]

Excellent!