The Federation of City Sabhas and Global Carnatic Fans Association on Sunday celebrated the 50th birthday of Chitravina N. Ravikiran under the auspices of Brahma Gana Sabha, which hosted his first vocal concert as a prodigious five-year-old.
The Sangita Kalanidhi-elect was honoured with the Chitravina Kala Praveena award and was presented a portrait of the maestro by cartoonist Keshav.
Earlier, an arangetram of Sanjay Suresh, one of the students of Mr. Ravikiran, was held.
Speaking on the occasion, industrialist Nalli Kuppuswami Chettiar said that he remembered how, as a two-year-old, Mr. Ravikiran instantaneously used to identify names of ragas. “Today, his students are performing arangetrams and I am happy to be here to witness the event,” he said.
S. Vaidhyasubramaniam, Dean, Sastra University, said that Mr. Ravikiran was a musical polymath with a multi-dimensional intellect who has put Chennai and the chitraveena on the international map.
Violin vidwan M. Chandrasekaran appreciated the way the student had been trained by Mr. Ravikiran and how his performance as accompanying artist on the violin to Sikkil C. Gurucharan did not seem like his debut concert.
Mr. Ravikiran said that he was completely overwhelmed by the fondness shown by the sabhas that have been seeing him from the age of 2. “Several sabhas encouraged me from the age of five as a vocalist and then as a chitravina artist from the age of 11. I am touched by this,” he said.
Later, speaking to The Hindu, he said his students were like family to him and he tried to instil a good attitude in them. “I have students who learn various instruments such as flute, keyboard, guitar and the idea is to make them sing the songs through the instruments. You have to understand the sahitya if you are an instrumentalist, and for that, you have to be a fan of all languages and composers. I believe that music should unite and not divide,” he added.