Veena artiste Vidya Shankar is no more
CHENNAI, June 30: We regret to announce the demise of renowned veena artiste Vidya Shankar.
She passed away at her home here yesterday following a cardiac arrest. She was 90.
She belonged to a family of extraordinary achievers. Her uncle C.V.Raman and brother S. Chandrasekhar were Nobel laureates. She grew up among nine siblings.She was the daugher of Sitalakshmi and Subramania Iyer, who was one of the founders of Music Academy. A redoubtable musicologist, she was acclaimed for her lec-dems and writings (`Biography of Syama Sastri, ``Art and Science of Carnatic Music''). In this book, she had furnished detailed meaning of the songs. Initially, she translated six songs. On seeing it, Mudicondan Venkatrama Iyer commended her. This encouraged her to do the translation for all the songs. " I used to get up daily at three in the morning and work on these kritis,'' she was quoted saying in an interview.
Among her writing works was the book titiled 'Aesthetic and Scientific values in Carnatic Music' . It is a compilation of the lecture demonstrations presented by her at the annual conferences of the Music Academy from 1946-1996. Another book `The Art and Science of Carnatic Music' is a compilation of a series of lectures she gave at the Kalpakkam Atomic Energy Centre, Tamil Nadu. This book explains the art of music from the aesthetic point of view and at the same time takes the reader step by step to an understanding of music as a science. She had great love for Sanskrit. Her uniqueness lay in the fact that she imbibed classicism from a profound source. Syama Sastri, great grandson of the composer, gave her treasures from his family wealth.
She passed away at her home here yesterday following a cardiac arrest. She was 90.
She belonged to a family of extraordinary achievers. Her uncle C.V.Raman and brother S. Chandrasekhar were Nobel laureates. She grew up among nine siblings.She was the daugher of Sitalakshmi and Subramania Iyer, who was one of the founders of Music Academy. A redoubtable musicologist, she was acclaimed for her lec-dems and writings (`Biography of Syama Sastri, ``Art and Science of Carnatic Music''). In this book, she had furnished detailed meaning of the songs. Initially, she translated six songs. On seeing it, Mudicondan Venkatrama Iyer commended her. This encouraged her to do the translation for all the songs. " I used to get up daily at three in the morning and work on these kritis,'' she was quoted saying in an interview.
Among her writing works was the book titiled 'Aesthetic and Scientific values in Carnatic Music' . It is a compilation of the lecture demonstrations presented by her at the annual conferences of the Music Academy from 1946-1996. Another book `The Art and Science of Carnatic Music' is a compilation of a series of lectures she gave at the Kalpakkam Atomic Energy Centre, Tamil Nadu. This book explains the art of music from the aesthetic point of view and at the same time takes the reader step by step to an understanding of music as a science. She had great love for Sanskrit. Her uniqueness lay in the fact that she imbibed classicism from a profound source. Syama Sastri, great grandson of the composer, gave her treasures from his family wealth.
