Anuradha Suresh pictured with her 2020 apprentice Nila Rajesh. Photo courtesy of the artists.
Anuradha Suresh is a master vocalist in South IndianCarnatic music, from Fremont, CA. She began learning Carnatic music at the age of four from Neyveli Srinivasa Iyengar (Neyveli, India). She was later trained by Padma Sandilyan and Rukmani Ramani (Chennai, India). She is currently studying through Skype from Uma Naresh (Coimbature, India), Lalgudi Rajalakshmi (Bangalore, India) and Shri. R. Suryaprakash (Chennai, India).
Carnatic music has played an integral role in Anuradha’s life since she was a child, whether it be learning, giving performances, or teaching. She have been learning music since she was four years old, and she still continues to learn today. Anuradha is the director of Shruthi Swara Laya, a school for Carnatic music based in Fremont. She has trained hundreds of students to perform and compete at various arenas, and to undergo certifications in Carnatic music offered in both India and United States. Anuradha is also pursuing her Masters in Carnatic Music at University of Silicon Andhra, Milpitas, CA.
Harikatha helps me in telling the stories from the epics through Carnatic Music and it helps my cultural community to learn the values of my tradition and culture.
For this apprenticeship, the goal is to focus on the individual components of Harikatha. The individual components are Storytelling and Carnatic Music. The apprentice, Amritavarshini, will be trained in each components separately, and then on how each of these components come together in Harikatha. Amritavarshini will also be trained on how to choose a story or topic for Harikatha, the research needed on the topic, the stories related to the topic, the songs that can be used as part of the storytelling and the Carnatic music aspects of singing. There will be a final presentation on the topic with all aspects of Harikatha coming together.
Under ACTA’s Apprenticeship Program, Anuradha will be training apprentice Nila Rajesh in the compositions of Samuel Vedanayagam Pillai, a non-denominational composer of Carnatic music. Pillai wrote works of a very high caliber, but these pieces are not commonly taught to Carnatic music students or sung in the concert circuit. Anuradha plans to teach these compositions to Nila so she can present these compositions in a lecture-demonstration and/or a concert format. Anuradha will also be working on Nila’s improvisational skills, so that she can augment the technical and aesthetic aspects of her concert presentation.
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