Photo Courtesy: Sudha Jagannathan

The general council of Sangeet Natak Akademi has unanimously elected ten eminent personalities in the field of performing arts as Akademi Fellows.

 Mridangam artiste T. V. Gopalakrishnan and clarinet exponent A K C Natarajan are among them.

 The 10 artists are: Saroja Vaidyanathan, Sadanam Krishnan Kutty, Darshana Jhaveri, Chhannu Lal Mishra, A K C Natarajan, Swapan Chaudhuri, Malini Rajurkar, T. V. Gopalakrishnan, Teejan Bai and Bharat Gupt. The Fellowship of the Akademi is a most prestigious and rare honour. It is restricted to 40 at any given time. With the election of 10 Fellows, there are 39 Fellows of Sangeet Natak Akademi.

The general council also selected 128 artists from across different fields for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar). This clears the backlog for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. The 128 include three joint awards.

The Akademi Awards have been conferred since 1952. These symbolize the highest standard of excellence and achievement. These awards also are recognition of sustained individual work and contributions.

The honour of Akademi Fellow carries a purse money of Rs.three lakhs. The Akademi Awards carry a purse money of Rs. One lakh. The awards will be conferred on the selected artists by the President of India in a special investiture ceremony.

Akademi Puraskar 2019

Among those who have been chosen for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for 2019 are: Charumathi Ramachandran, Pala C K Ramachandran (Carnatic vocal), Mala Chandrasekhar (flute), Trivandrum V Surendran (mridangam), O.S. Arun (sugam sangeet) and Uma Maheshwari (Harikatha).

Akademi Puraskar 2020

Among those who have been chosen for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for 2020 are: R.K. Padmanabha, G. Balakrishna Prasad (Carnatic vocal), Patri Satish Kumar (mridangam) and M.A. Sundaraswaram (violin).

Akademi Puraskar 2021

Among those who have been chosen for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for 2021 are: Sudha Ragunathan, Radha Namboodiri (Carnatic vocal), D.Balakrishnan (Veena) and Thanjavur R. Govindarajan (thavil).