This year marks the centenary of the Carnatic musician Vinjamuri Varadaraja Iyengar. Several programmes will commemorate the event.
The artist, born on July 15, 1915, in an affluent family, grew up watching his sister learn music from Piratla Sankara Sastri, the Mukthyala court musician, and soon began lessons with him. Vinjamuri gave his first performance at the age of seven in the presence of Mysore Veena Seshanna. After 10 years of classes with Piratla, Vinjamuri learnt from Tiger Varadachari in a gurukulam, until Tiger’s demise in 1950. Vinjamuri was a musicologist, teacher, administrator, composer , writer and orator. All these came in handy when he assumed various positions in different faculties and especially when he became the founder principal of the Music College in Hyderabad or later for AIR Hyderabad as the Carnatic music producer.
In 1955 when the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting decided to appoint people for Carnatic music programmes on All India Radio, South, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, then the chief producer of Carnatic music of AIR, recommended GNB’s name for the Madras region and Vinjamuri Varadaraja Iyengar’s for Hyderabad. Thus Vinjamuri became the first Carnatic music producer of AIR, Hyderabad, in 1956.
The Hyderabad station, then known as Deccan Broadcasting Corporation, aired more of Hindustani programmes and fewer Carnatic ones those days. During his eight year-tenure there, Carnatic music gained prominence.
His wit and humour along with incomparable knowledge of music earned him the name ‘Walking Encyclopaedia of Music and Matters of Music.’
As early as 1943, he started ‘Sangeetha Sikshana’ on AIR, Chennai, under the name ‘Gana Lahari,’ teaching music on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Besides, he also introduced many programmes and thematic features.
Varadaraja Iyengar also produced and broadcast many operas, some of them based on the lives of composers such as Syama Sastri and Tyagaraja.
He taught rare kritis of Dikshitar, Swati Tirunal, Tyagaraja and Kovvur Pancharatna kritis to aspiring students. .A perfectionist, he trained many at AIR and from outside as well.
Some of those benefited from Vinjamuri’s productions in AIR, Hyderabad included T.T. Sita, Malathi Padmanabha Rao, Sharada Srinivasan, N.S. Srinivasan, Nookala Chinna Satyanarayana, Sharada Ramanathan, Lakshmi Narayana, Pakala Savitri and Kanaka Durga.
