Jayaprada Ramamurthy is on a roll. The flautist, who is considered the new face of Indian classical music with her innovative brand of melodies, which infuses a touch of the new within the folds of tradition, is not only composing the tunes for two art films, she is also busy working on a Carnatic album for children.
Music, says Jayaprada, is in her genes. Her mother, Prema Ramamurthy, is an acclaimed singer. The petite musician recalls her mother doing riyaaz at the break of dawn and how melodies would always fill her home. However, vocal music was not what she wanted out of life. “Even as a child I knew I didn’t want to become a professional singer; I wanted to do something different. The flute just happened to me; I saw it, I took it and now, I’m trying to conquer it... My late maternal grandfather, Srinivasa Sastri who was Zamindar of Bellary, was a flautist, and I guess I take after him,” says Jayaprada, who is the first and presently the only female flute artiste from Andhra and Telangana regions. She is also the first woman flautist from India to use the top, base, and Western key flutes for classical music concerts.
A self-taught artiste and a self-made musician, Jayaprada started performing at the age of 13. The artiste who has polished her skills under the tutelage of maestros such as N. Ramani and Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, says, it was Pt. Chaurasia who encouraged her to practise on the base flute when she first met him on a concert tour of Bangladesh. Through her experimentation, she developed her own style of playing using “transposed fingering technique”.
A traditionalist at heart, Jayaprada admits to introducing new concepts in her concerts “but within boundaries” to attract a younger audience. “It’s not easy to sell classical music - be it Indian or Western. To garner in the youth, I try to present traditional music in the way the youth want to hear it. I hold thematic concerts – eka raga concerts for instance. I try to make innovative and bold statements through my music. I still do perform a lot of traditional concerts though. I play only if I can make my music reach the listeners; money is never a motive,” says the musician who has several albums in her kitty and has in her list of credentials a raga titled ‘Uma’.
Jayaprada, who is active on various social media platforms, says that one needs to market oneself if one wants to make a mark as an artiste. “Word of mouth publicity is not enough if one wants to reach out to a global audience. If one believes one is good, there’s no harm in marketing oneself, but in the right way.”
When she is not busy with her music, the national award winner for excellence in fine arts enjoys taking long drives with friends and family. “I also enjoy visiting museums.” As for music, the artiste tunes into music of all genres. A great fan of Abba and Michael Jackson, Abba’s ‘Thank You for the Music’, is an all time favourite of hers.
Jayaprada was in the city for a concert organised by Bharat Bhavan. She also rendered a private recital at the Raj Bhavan.
