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SRIRAM PARASURAM
 SRIRAM
PARASURAM hails from a family steeped in
musical tradition. He started learning the
violin at the age of 4 and as a child
prodigy he gave his first public performance
at the age of 8. Since then he has given
well over 3000 violin solo concerts all over
the world. His mother Smt. Parvathy
Parasuram continues to be his primary Guru
but Sriram Parasuram has also had the good
fortune of training rigourously under
esteemed Gurus such as Sangeetha Kalanidhi
Sri K.S. Narayanaswamy, and Sangeetha
Kalanidhi Sri T.Viswanathan. For Hindustani
music he is the sisya of the doyen and
stalwart Padmabhushan Pandit C.R.Vyas.
Among the many accolades, awards and
titles bestowed upon him, one of the most
noteworthy is the President of India Gold
medal for both Carnatic and Hindustani music
in 1986. He was awarded a fellowship to
study Western Classical violin in the U.S.
and he completed his Master of Music Degree
in Western Violin Performance from the
University of Akron, Ohio, U.S.A. He
proceeded further and did his Ph.D. in WORLD
MUSIC from Wesleyan University, U.S.A.
Besides his accomplishments in the field of
music, Sriram Parasuram holds a mechanical
engineering degree from University of
Bombay, and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.
Other than classical music, Sriram
Parasuram has made many succesful forays
into the fields of jazz and popular music.
He has collaborated, composed and performed
with many musicians from different cultures
such as Javanese Gamelan, West African
drumming, and Japanese Koto. As a
composer–singer, his Hindi pop album
“Savariya” (His group known as ‘Three
Brothers and a Violin”) has received rave
reviews and was awarded the Screen Videocon
award for Best Composer and Best Album in
2000. In a unique project in 2005, Sriram
Parasuram directed and performed with an
ensemble giving live background score for
the landmark 1924 silent film on Gautama
Buddha “The light of Asia”.
Alongwith his wife Anoorada Sriram, he
has given Carnatic–Hindustani Jugalbandhi
concerts all over the world, in a very
unique format that has been hailed
overwhelmingly as a most thrilling and
innovative performance genre in recent
times. He has recently entered the world of
film music, having composed the music for
Sri Manirathnam’s production titled FIVE
STAR, directed by Sri Susi Ganesan.
ANOORADA SRIRAM
ANOORADA SRIRAM, one of south India’s
leading playback singers, started her music
training at the tender age of 6. Well versed
in both Carnatic and Hindustani classical
music, she is a double gold medal winner at
both the B.A. and M.A. levels from Madras
University. Anoorada is a student of musical
luminaries such as Sri Tanjavur S.
Kalyanaraman and Sangeetha Kalanidhi Smt.
T.Brinda. She has also trained extensively
in Hindustani music under the veteran Pandit
Manikbua Thakurdas. Anoorada has performed
extensively all over India and U.S.A and has
given many radio and TV programmes since the
age of 12. She is also an accomplished
Western Classical opera singer, having
undergone intensive training from Prof.
Shirley Meier in New York, U.S.A. She also
has a Master of Arts degree in
Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University,
U.S.A.
Anoorada Sriram is one of the film
industry’s most versatile singers having
sung more than 2500 film songs in all the
south Indian languages under all the leading
music directors. She has also had numerous
hits in Hindi films too. Among the many
awards and titles that she has received
notable are the Tamil Nadu State Kalai
Manram’s award for best female playback
singer in 1996, the Karnataka State Award
for best playback singer in 1999, The West
Bengal State Award for best playback singer
in 2004, two nominations for the national
award, the Filmfare award for the best
playback singer 2002, the inaugural
International Tamil Film Award held in
Malaysia in 2003 and many other awards such
as Cinema Express, Dinakaran and Dinamalar
awards. Most recently in 2006 she was
awarded the prestigious Tamil Nadu State
KALAIMAMANI award for her significant
contribution to the field of music.
Her path breaking Tamil Pop album
entitled CHENNAI GIRL released in 1997, was
a super hit having crossed more than 3 lakh
cassette sales worldwide. The title song
video was the first Tamil album video to be
aired on international channels such as MTV,
Sony Television and V. CHENNAI GIRL won the
Screen Videocon award for Best Pop Album in
1998, alongwith A.R.Rahman’s Vande Mataram.
The album is unique since Anoorada
co-composed the album alongwith her husband
Sriram Parasuram, and penned all the lyrics
for the album too.
A very popular TV host and anchor and one
of the most vibrant and sought after stage
performers, Anoorada Sriram has staged shows
to full houses all over the world in places
such as Singapore, Malaysia, America, Gulf
countries, South Africa, Australia, Europe,
Canada etc. |
