The Karnataka Sangeetha Nritya Academy on Wednesday announced the winners of the Karnataka Kalashree awards for 2013–14 and 2014–15.
Eighteen music and dance artistes figure in the awards list for each year. They will receive the awards in the Ravindra Kalakshetra on November 12.
Karnataka Kalashree - Award of Honour will be given to Raghunath Nakod (tabla, Dharwad) and C.V. Srimathi (Gamaka, Chikmagalur) for 2013–14, and to D. Balakrishna (veena, Bangalore) and Vijaya Marthanda (dance, Bangalore) for 2014–15.
Gangamma Keshavamurthy, academy president, said, “We have received a grant of Rs. 1 crore from the Karnataka government towards the awards function. As the academy’s activities suffered because of not having a president for almost a year until February 2014, we decided to merge the award functions of two years to save on the expenditure.”
All districts of the State and all categories under music and dance have been covered in the 18 awards selected for each year, T.G. Narasimha Moorthy, registrar of the academy, said.
The Karnataka Kalashree Annual Award winners for 2013–14 are: Carnatic category — R.S. Ramakanth (vocal, Bangalore), Ananth Avadhani (vocal, Shimoga), K.S. Gopalakrishna (violin, Kolar), and Tirumale Srinivas (music composing); Hindustani category — Mahabaleshwara Bhagavat (vocal, Udupi), Mahapurusha (sitar, Bagalkot) and Kalappa Nagalingappa Pattar (tabla, Yadgir); dance category — Kiran Subramanyam and Sandhya Kiran (Bharatanatyam, Bangalore) and K. Brinda (nattuvanga, Mysore); Sugama Sangeetha category — Vittabai Dattatreya Kanavinde (Belgaum), Nagalambika Chandrashekar (Raichur), Rameshchandra (‘Gadinadu’ – Kasaragod) and Latha Jahagirdhar (Bijapur); Harikatha category — Mallayya Sastry (Bidar), and Gamaka category — C.P. Vidyashankar (Mandya) and Vijayamala Ranganath (Mysore).
The Annual Award winners for 2014–15 are: Carnatic category — D.V. Nagaraj (vocal, Bangalore), S. Rajalakshmi (vocal, Mysore) and M.N.P. Ratnam (saxophone, Mandya); Hindustani category — V.M. Nagaraj (vocal, Bangalore), Rajaguru Guruswamy Kalkeri (vocal, Gadag), A.S. Vattara (tabla, Bidar) and Ashok Huggannavar (vocal, Uttara Kannada); dance category — Urmila Basudev Patra (Bharatanatyam, Hubli) and Rupa Rajesh (Kuchipudi, Chickballapur); Sugama Sangeetha category — Manjula Gururaj (Bangalore), K. Kariappa Master (Raichur) and B.S. Venugopala Raju (tabla, Bangalore); Harikatha category — V. Ashwathanarayana Dasaru (Bangalore); Gamaka category — Ganesh Udupa (Udupi) and N.K. Ramasheshan (Mysore); and Rangashree (Kuwait) has been chosen in the overseas dance artiste category.
