Dr. S. Ramanathan "what
he doesn't know about music, is not worth knowing" Sangita Kalanidhi, Isai
Perarignar Dr. S. Ramanathan Through the oral tradition he was the recipient of the masterpieces of the most famous 17th century composers, Sri Tyagaraja, Sri Muthuswamy Dikshithar and Sri Syama Sastri, having been bequeathed to their descendants. He was a disciple of Tiger Varadachariar, Sabesa Iyer, Ponniah Pillai, and Sathur Krishna Iyengar. Among his accomplishments are number of varnams and kritis, residencies at several American universities and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He also had trained a number of students who achieved recognition in the carnatic music field like P.UnniKrishnan, S. Sowmya, Sukanya Raghunathan (veena), Geetha Bennett (veena), Vidya Hariharan (veena and vocal), R.Banumathy, Vanathy Raghuraman, Latha Radhakrishnan (violin and vocal), Padma Gadiyar (veena), Thyagarajan/Raju, Vasumathi Nagarajan, Savithri Sathyamurthy, Seetha Narayanan, Sucharithra and Lavanya to name a few. Acclaimed as a Vidwan of Vidwans by none other than Sri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, his dedication to reach the masses also was evident in the regular meetings he addressed at the Gandhi Peace Centre, called "Music for Layman". His translation of Subbarama Dikshitar’s Sangeetha Sampradaya Pradharshini as also numerous books on music & musicology serve as authentic reference material on Indian music for all times to come. His PhD thesis, Music in Silappathikaram' is a milestone reference material on the music of the tamils for researchers in music/tamil literature. |