Recorded at Darbar Festival 2009, at London’s Southbank Centre, on 3rd April.

Musicians:
- Aruna Sairam (vocals)
- Jyotsna Srikanth (violin)
- Patri Satish Kumar (mridangam)
- RN Prakash (ghatam)
- Priya Parkash (tanpura)

Raga Shanmukhapriya

Aruna Sairam leads a 5-piece Carnatic group through the ominous Raga Shanmukhapriya, often associated with warlike deities such as Murugan and Shiva.

Learn more about the music:
Aruna Sairam’s voice brings a husky authority to modern Carnatic music. She first learnt to sing by listening to her mother and is part of a long line of female musicians. The direct teaching lineage stretches back over 200 years, to the singers and dancers of the Tamil court. She is an exponent of ‘pure’ Carnatic singing but also looks outwards, with collaborations ranging from jazz and Sufi to Gregorian chant and film scores. She sings in 12 different languages, and vice-chairs the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s premier national music and dance institution.

She pulls no punches when it comes to the psychological obstacles faced by female musicians today: “You’re constantly told you’re not good enough…it can be more difficult to be in touch with your inner talents, as society expects women to nourish others first.”

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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