R K Shriramkumar
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A brief biography
As of 2025
Suanshu Khurana, March 29, 2025: The Indian Express
The Music Academy, Chennai, has chosen violinist and composer Rudrapatna Krishnamurthy Shriramkumar for this year’s prestigious Sangita Kalanidhi Award.
Music Academy president N Murali said Shriramkumar is an acknowledged authority on the 19th century composer and writer Subbarama Dikshitar, nephew of the poet-saint Muthuswami Dikshitar, one of the holy trinity of Carnatic music (the other two being Tyagaraja and Syama Sastri).
“It is fitting that he (Shriramkumar) has been chosen for this…award in the year marking the 250th anniversary of the master composer (Muthuswami Dikshitar),” Murali said.
Who is R K Shriramkumar and what is special about his music?
Illustrious lineage
Shriramkumar belongs to an illustrious Sankethi Brahmin family of musicians from Rudrapatna, a village on the bank of the Cauvery in Karnataka’s Hassan district, which is known as Sangeet Grama, or Village of Music.
The village and family have produced some of the biggest names in Carnatic music, including the vocalists R K Srikantan and R K Narayanaswamy. Srikantan was awarded the Sangita Kalanidhi in 1995, and Narayanaswamy’s sons R N Thyagarajan and Dr R N Tharanathan sing as the famed Rudrapatnam Brothers.
Srikantan was Shriramkumar’s grand uncle. His own grandfather was R K Venkatarama Sastry, who learned the violin from veena legend Veena Subanna and violinist Mysore T Chowdiah, after whom Bengaluru’s Chowdiah Memorial Hall is named.
Shriramkumar himself learned the violin in Chennai from Savithri Sathyamurthy, his grandfather Venkatarama Sastry, and V V Subrahmanyam. He learnt to sing from the vocalist D K Jayaraman, who often performed with D K Pattammal, Jayaraman’s renowned older sister.
Shriramkumar’s music
Shriramkumar debuted at age 15, accompanying Carnatic vocalist N Vijay Siva, a student of both Jayaraman and Pattammal.
T M Krishna, winner of last year’s Sangita Kalanidhi award, told The Indian Express that Shriramkumar’s musical expression “epitomises the most profound qualities of Carnatic music in terms of tonality, and what one may call the Carnatic accent”.
“Whether he is presenting the raga in terms of improvisation or as a composition, you will hear it in its truest sense, with all its quintessential phases, with the legacy of the raga expressed extraordinarily,” Krishna said.
He described Shriramkumar’s violin technique as very nuanced. “…You will hear very subtle variations and oscillations which you will not hear in many other people’s musical expressions. This sets him apart. There is an emotive quality to his sensitivity to sound, to every movement of the raga, to every part of the composition and deep respect for what has been bequeathed to us,” Krishna said.
Accompanying the best
Shriramkumar honed his skills by accompanying some of the biggest names in Carnatic classical music, including Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, M S Subbulakshmi, D K Pattammal, D K Jayaraman, T Brinda, and T Muktha. He has also performed with younger musicians, including Sudha Raghuraman, Bombay Jayashri and Krishna, whom Shriramkumar accompanied as a 22-year-old at his debut concert, when Krishna was 12.
Krishna, whom Shriramkumar has continued to accompany for almost four decades, said the master violinist adopted the most profound musical qualities through his associations on stage.
“He didn’t just share the stage with them, he engaged actively with them, asking them questions, understanding the music better, looking at different perspectives that each one had toward their music, the way it is presented, concerts, different variations of a composition… This has greatly enriched his own perspective. Beyond this, he has his own thought process, his own set of musical ethics, his individualistic sense of presenting Carnatic music – the way it should sound or should be shared,” Krishna said.
He said that as partners on stage, Shriramkumar and he shared “very similar sensibilities, ideas of music and what it means in its deepest sense and why we practice this form”.
Sangita Kalanidhi and Music Academy
Sangita Kalanidhi, which translates as ‘Treasure of Music and Art’, is the highest honour in Carnatic music. It is awarded annually by the Madras Music Academy, one of the oldest academies of Carnatic music in India.
The Music Academy was established in 1928, following a decision taken at the Indian National Congress session in Chennai in December 1927 to promote Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam. The lawyer, freedom fighter, and artiste E Krishna Aiyar was trying at the time to revive Bharatanatyam, which had suffered from the stigma of association with devadasis.
