Mridangam artiste Vankayala Narasimham passes away

December 12, 2016 12:17 am | Updated 12:17 am IST - VISAKHAPATNAM:

Vankayala Narasimham

Vankayala Narasimham

Noted Mridangam artiste Vankayala Narasimham passed away at the Govt. TB Hospital here on Saturday evening, his family said on Sunday morning. He was admitted to the hospital with a chest problem three days ago. He was 84 and is survived by wife Sitaratnam and two sons, one of them is Vankayala Ventaka Ramana Murthy, a noted mridangam artiste land AIR staff artiste. Another son is a software engineer.

Mr. Narasimham was teaching science at the Municipal High School at Vizianagaram, his native place and also earned reputation as a good teacher apart from being acclaimed as a mridangam expert. He resigned the teacher’s job and joined AIR as a staff artiste here in 1975.

During his seven decades of music life, Mr. Narasimham accompanied reputed artistes like Dwaram Venkataswami Naidu, D.K. Pattammal, Emani Sankara Sastri, Nedunuri Krishnamurthy and others.

A programme on ‘vaggeyakaras’ during his stint with AIR has received appreciation. Vaggeyakaras like Santuru Krishnamacharyulu, Toomu Narasimhadasu, Adibhatla Narayanadasu, Upadrashta Srirama Dasu and others were highlighted in the programme. He also sang the ‘keertanaks’ of ‘vaggeyakaras’ in special programmes held all over the State.

Mr. Narasimham was working as Principal of the Bharata Kala Vihar Sangeeta Pathasala at Gudilova here after retiring from AIR in 1991 and till he breathed last and during this period he had introduced mridangam and south Indian classical music to students from eastern and north eastern parts of the country.

He conceived “rapidex” method of learning mridangam and brought out a text book on it.

Mr. Narasimham was born to Venkata Lakshmi and Lakshmana Swamy in Vizianagaram on November 14, 1931. He studied B.Sc. at MR College, Vizianagaram and B.Ed. at Andhra University here. He worked at the Municipal High School, Vizianagaram, for 22 years before joining AIR.

He learnt music under the tutelage of Sripada Sanyasi Rao and mridingam from Mullapudi Lakshmana Rao under the Gurukula system. He soon became a noted mridangam artiste. He received Hamsa award from the State government, and was conferred with titles like Nadasudhanidhi, Mridanga Praveena, Tapasira, Visarada, etc. Sadguru Sivananda Murthy conferred Sangeeta Vidyanidhi title on him on behalf of the Andhra Music Academy.

He has trained many youngsters as mridanga vidwans, like his son Venkata Ramana and Patri Satish Kumar. Several of his disciples are with the AIR as A grade artistes.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.