Music festival dedicated to Chowdiah begins today

As Bengaluru gears up for the much-awaited three-day Chowdiah festival (November 4 to 6) in physical format, it’s time again to revisit the life and music of violin maestro Mysore T. Chowdiah. The man behind the seven-stringed violin, he served as a cultural bridge between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

In 1939, Chowdiah became the Mysore Asthana Vidwan. He was conferred the Sangeeta Ratna by the Maharaja of Mysore in 1940, and received the Presidential Award in 1956. The Madras Music Academy conferred the Sangita Kalanidhi upon him in 1957.

In a rare gesture, a small group of people at the Bengaluru-based The Academy of Music, headed by K.K. Murthy, decided to honour this vidwan by dedicating a hall in his name, probably the only performing space in the world built in the memory of a musician. Inaugurated in 1980, the internationally reputed violin-shaped auditorium in Bengaluru, the Chowdiah Memorial Hall, was established with a vision to support and nurture classical arts, particularly music.

The Chowdiah Memorial hall in Bengaluru.
| Photo Credit: BHAGYA PRAKASH K.

Over the years, several luminaries from the world of music and dance such as Pt. Jasraj, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Ravi Shankar, Balamurali Krishna, Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and Vyjayanthimala have performed here. Veena vidwan Emani Sankara Sastry once remarked about how fortunate Chowdiah was to have received such an honour. “It has always been a privilege to perform in this hall named after him,” he had said.

Apart from national and state-level awards, The Academy of Music has also been conducting the annual Chowdiah National Festival of Music since November 1982. The first distinguished national awardee was Lalgudi Jayaraman. In the subsequent years it was bestowned upon stalwarts such as T.N. Krishnan, M.S. Gopalakrishnan, Doreswamy Iyengar, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, M.L. Vasanthakumari, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Maharajapuram Santhanam, Mandolin Shrinivas, Vellore Ramabhadran, Chitti Babu, D.K. Pattammal, Gangubai Hangal and others. Among the state-level awardees were R.R. Keshavamurthy, Pt. Rama Rao Naik, R.K. Suryanarayana, Vinayak Torvi and others. After the demise of K.K Murthy, in commemoration of his yeoman service, these awards were rechristened as ‘Sri K.K Murthy Memorial Chowdiah Awards’.

The annual festival is back after a two-year hiatus with a formidable line up featuring Jayanthi and Kumaresh, Suma Sudhindra, Pt. Vinayak Torvi, Pt. Ravindra Yawagal and Ravindra Katoti. And as these musicians perform, they will bring alive the memory of the inimitable composer-violinist.

The Bengaluru-based writer is a trained musician.