Recorded for Darbar Festival 2013, at London’s Southbank Centre, on 19th September.

Musicians:
- Jayanthi Kumaresh (saraswati veena)
- Patri Satish Kumar (mridangam)
- RN Prakash (ghatam)
- Mithila Sarma (tanpura)

Raga Shanmukhapriya

Jayanthi Kumaresh’s gently electrified saraswati veena is an ancient instrument, but produces a strikingly guitaristic tone, leading a dual-drum lineup on Shanmukhapriya.

Learn more about the music:
Jayanthi Kumaresh’s saraswati veena is an ancient instrument, named after the Hindu goddess of arts and learning. But her gently electrified version produces a strikingly guitaristic tone, igniting Carnatic classical melodies with sweeping bends. She started playing aged three, and learned under her mother Lalgudi Rajalakshmi, before leaving home aged 13 to study with her aunt Padmavathy Ananthagopalan. She also received instruction from her great-uncle, violinist Lalgudi Jayaraman, and noted veenai S Balachander.

A few years later she became one of the youngest artists to receive an All India Radio ‘A’ grading, earned a doctorate in veena history, and founded the Indian National Orchestra, uniting musicians from India’s classical traditions in a large ensemble. On recent recordings she has experimented with recording seven layers of veena on top of each other, and continues to write for dance and film.

Shanmukhapriya’s ominous melodic structure is often associated with Murugan, the god of war, and Shiva, the destroyer. It is a sampoorna [seven-note] ragam, ascending and descending symmetrically as SR₂G₂M₂PD₁N₂S. There is a wide interval jump between Ri and Gi, and its distinctive shape has been widely used for song composition for centuries.

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