TITLE: Sreevidhya Chandramouli with Poovalur Sriji: South Indian Classical Music from Oregon
SPEAKER: Sreevidhya Chandramouli, Poovalur Sriji
EVENT DATE: 08/20/2009
RUNNING TIME: 64 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
Sreevidhya Chandramouli plays the vina, a plucked Indian lute with a fret board spanning three and a half octaves. She was trained in the Karaikudi vina tradition, the only school of south Indian vina players that goes back more than ten generations. Also featured is Poovalur Sriji on the mridangam.
Speaker Biography: Sreevidhya Chandramouli is a tenth generation vina player in the Karaikudi tradition of Carnatic (South Indian classical) music. She began learning this instrument at the age of four, began performing with her mother from the age of nine, and gave her first solo performance when she was sixteen. In addition to her traditional training, she received a master's degree in music from the University of Madras. She is also an experienced vocalist and visual artist. Sreevidhya has been a regular performer on All India Radio and Indian Doordashan (TV), and has toured widely in Asia, Europe, and North America. She has been featured in major music festivals in India, Germany, and the Netherlands. Sreevidhya has been living in Portland, Oregon since the late 1980s, where she teaches South Indian music in her home. She has served as visiting artist at the University of Washington, and has taught the Music of India course at the University of Oregon School of Music. She is pursuing the art of vina-making in Chennai, India, and conducts workshops in vina maintenance in Portland. She is also a founding member of Dhvani, a non-profit organization based in Portland, dedicated to the teaching, preservation, and dissemination of Indian arts.
Speaker Biography: Poovalur Sriji (Srinivasan) studied South Indian drumming with his father P. A. Venkataraman. Poovalur has performed and recorded with leading artists from both South and North Indian traditions, and western performers such as Yehudi Menuhin, Mark O'Connor, John Bergamo, and Glen Velez. The album Tabula Rasa, on which he composed and performed with Bela Fleck, V. M. Bhatt, and J. P. Chen, was nominated for a Grammy. Poovalur is currently a faculty member at the University of North Texas. He has also taught at the California Institute of the Arts and San Diego State University. He is a founding member of the group Brahmah, and directs the SNEW and the South Indian Cross Cultural Ensemble.
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SERIES: Homegrown
