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Among the South Indian classical music
aficionados of the San Francisco Bay Area,
the name Anuradha Sridhar (Anu) is
synonymous with purity, rigor and
refinement. Anu established her music
school, Trinity Center for Music, a few
months after she moved to the Bay Area in
1989. What began as a tiny Sunnyvale
studio with three students has burgeoned
into a music school with several committed
senior students who are raised in the
Carnatic music eco-system created
especially for them in Saratoga, halfway
around the globe from India's heartland of
Carnatic music, Chennai.
Anu has been a tireless teacher, performer
and ambassador for Carnatic music in the
Bay Area. Groomed in a milieu that traces
its roots back to the most significant
Carnatic composer of all time, Saint
Thyagaraja, the strains of music have been
handed down in her family like a precious
heirloom, from generation to generation.
Her grandfather, Lalgudi Gopala Iyer, was
an innovative teacher and a versatile
musician who showed musical agility over a
range of instruments. Anu, who has vivid
memories of learning sessions with him, is
the daughter and disciple of his fourth child,
Lalgudi Srimathi Brahmanandan, the
reputed sister of violin maestro Lalgudi G.
Jayaraman. For over two decades, the
renowned brother-sister duo performed
legendary concerts many of which, even
today, evoke awe in music circles in India.
Tuned to Lalgudi Tradition
The spark Anu displayed at a young age was
honed by her mother. When Anu performed
on the Doordarshan at age seven, several
senior musicians of the era called her
parents to commend her performance of
Papanasam Sivan's famous work
"Ennathavam Seidhanai" in the Raga Kapi.
They had noticed that the child had
imbibed, very early indeed, the family's
signature style.with its emphasis on purity
of sound, emphasis on raga bhava (emotion),
understanding of the sahityam (lyrics), and
mastery over layam (rhythm). For Anu, the
responsibility and privilege of belonging to
such a family set in early as she began to be
groomed for the stage.
Anu has performed with her mother from
the time she turned twelve, accompanying
her in later years in performances in India,
Singapore, United Kingdom, Australia, New
Zealand, Canada and the United States.
Anu still continues to accompany senior
musicians around the country and also
performs duets with her mother and guru in
the Chennai music festival season. The
music community in Chennai recognized
Anu's prowess many times: she received the
best violinist award from the prestigious
Music Academy of India's Chennai for her
performances in its December Music festival
concerts during the years 1979, 1982, 1984
and 1999. An excerpt from "The Hindu" of
December 2004 compliments the mother
and daughter duo thus: "With perfect
coordination acquired from long and
dedicated practice, the duo recital was most
pleasing and flawlessly executed. It was a
landmark performance of the season, quite
expectedly".
In the last two decades of living in the San
Francisco Bay Area, Anu has enjoyed a
myriad of musical forays both in the Indian
and the mainstream world. Ever challenged
by a technically demanding repertoire,
Anuradha has ventured into thematic
concerts that required painstaking research;
she thrives on unearthing complicated
rhythm structures, rare ragas and forgotten
compositions. One such project was "Nritya
Mela Ragamalika", which was an effort to
present the complicated ragamalika of Maha
Vaidhyanatha Sivan based on the seventy two
melakarthas. Recently, in May 2010,
Anu pursued another challenge along with
her mother; together, they composed music
for twelve compositions by fifteenth century
composer Sri Annamacharya. The countless
hours of research, planning and setting the
score resulted in a brilliantly executed set of
songs never previously tuned.
Teacher par Excellence
Over the last many years Anu has invested a
substantial part of her musical energy into
grooming young artistes in her studio. For
this she has also enlisted the passion and
energy of her brother, Shriram
Brahmanandam, a renowned mridangam
artiste groomed by Kumbakonam Rajappa
Iyer, as a master teacher of layam in her
school. Her vision for building wholesome
musicianship in the next generation of
artistes has been recognized. In March
2008, Anu received the "Best Teacher
Award" in North America at the Cleveland
Aradhana for tirelessly "promoting the
Carnatic arts in the North American
continent by teaching in the community and
providing opportunities for aspiring
Carnatic musicians to showcase their
talents".
In the last five years, Cleveland's top prizes
in kriti and in the improvisational aspects of
raga alapana, neraval, kalpanaswaram, and
pallavi, have gone to Trinity's students;
judges have praised the children's diction,
adherence to purity and tradition and their
passion in rendition. Many of these students
have also distinguished themselves in the
Bay Area as youth musicians of high caliber,
both as vocal and violin soloists and as up
and coming violin accompanists. In April
2009, the Trinity Center for Music received
a first prize in the Best School Competition.
judged by stalwarts including T. K. Govinda
Rao, Suguna Purushothaman and Suguna
Varadachari.at the Cleveland Aradhana
Celebrations.
Anu and her students are also beginning to
make an impact on music-related initiatives
in the mainstream. In November 2009, they
were invited to be part of a Youth Music
Initiative for the San Francisco World
Music Festival that involved musicians from
many genres and cultures, including
Kyrgyzstan, Tibet, Taiwan, and North
India.
Giving back to the Community
Since her arrival in the Bay Area, Anu has
been actively involved in promoting the
cause of Carnatic Music. She has actively
volunteered her skill for community
fundraiser shows for organizations such as
Asha, Sankara Eye Foundation, Sankara
Nethralaya, SwayamKrushi, Iskcon,
Livermore Temple and Sewa International.
Anu has collaborated with musicians from
other genres in the Pan Asian Music
Festival hosted by Stanford University. She
has choreographed and performed "Vadhya
Vrindha" - a musical ensemble of various
South Indian classical instruments involving
many local bay area artistes.
In 1999, Anu and Shriram formed Solfa
Creations, a company dedicated to
propagating Carnatic Music using
technology and innovation. The brother
sister team released the first interactive
animated CD-ROM on Saint Thyagaraja's
life through several multimedia concert
presentations, receiving critical acclaim for
their novel presentation in several cities in
the United States and in Chennai.
Aside from adopting projects centering
around music, Anu has also spearheaded
causes for the larger community. In 2007,
along with a core team of parent and student
volunteers from Trinity, she propelled a
bone marrow drive initiative in which her
team spent many weekends educating the
South Asian-American community and
holding drives. The effort helped increase
the number of people in the registry by
about 2,400 in just one weekend.
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