Tamil Nadu - Fine arts - Legends - M. Balamuralikrishna
Legends Of Tamilnadu
M. Balamuralikrishna
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Mangalampalli Balamurali Krishna born July 6, 1930 is a Carnatic vocalist, multi-intrumentalist and a playback singer. He is also acclaimed as a poet, composer and respected for his knowledge of Carnatic Music.
Early life and background
Balamuralikrishna was born in Sankaraguptam, Andhra Pradesh. His father was a well known musician and could play the flute, violin and the veena and his mother was an excellent veena player. He lost his mother when he was just a baby and since then, he was taken care by his father. Observing his inner penchant towards music, his father put him under the tutelage of Sri Parumpalli Ramakrishna Pantulu. Sri Pantulu was a direct descendant of the sisya parampara of Saint Thyagaraja. Under the guidance of this great man, the gifted child had no difficulty in learning the divine music. Very soon he mastered the Carnatic Music. At a tender age of eight, the young genius gave his first full fledged concert at a Thyagaraja Aradhana, Vijayawada. Perhaps many people did not expect the meteoric rise of the child prodigy.
Musunuri Suryanarayana Murty Bhagavatar, a distinguished Harikatha performer, observing the musical genius in the child gave the prefix 'Bala' to the young Muralikrishna. This title has stuck to him ever since and is popularly known as Balamuralikrishna. Balamuralikrishna thus began his musical career at a very young age. By the age of fifteen he had mastered all the 72 melakartha ragas and had composed kirthis in the same. The Janaka Raga Manjari was published in 1952 and recorded as Raagaanga Ravali in a nine-volume series by the Sangeeta Recording Company.This astonished many pundits of music and lyric.
Balamuralikrishna soon became very famous as a singer. The number of concerts for this young musician began to increase and hence he had to discontinue his school.
Not merely content with his fame as a carnatic vocalist, very soon Balamurali proved his immense versatility by playing the kanjira, mridangam, viola and violin. He also accompanied various musicians in violin and is also noted to give solo viola concerts.
