48 talented vocalists

Kurai Ondrum Illai Humble Tribute to Sankara Nethralaya’s Frontline Warriors

48 talented vocalists and instrumentalists gave a soulful rendition of Kurai Ondrum Illai song as a tribute to our frontline heroes of Sankara Nethralaya Chennai team.

‘Kurai Ondrum Illai’ is one of the famous Tamil devotional songs, which was tuned by Shri Kadayanallur Venkatraman, who was a close associate of Shri Semmangudi. Governor General of India Sri C. Rajagopalachari has weaved those beautiful words into an amazing song and popularized by Bharat Ratna M. S. Subbulakshmi amma who has made this lively song divine and immortal with her soulful voice.  The song is an expression of thankfulness to the divine without any wants left unfulfilled.

To mention the raagams, the whole song is not based on just one raagam but is a Raagamalika. The pallavi and anupallavi are sung in Shivaranjani while the charanam is rendered in Shivaranjani, Kapi and Sindubhairavi.

All the 48 artists are carefully selected and this project was started in July and completed on Sep 7, 2020.   The concept, execution and the direction is by Sowmiya Narayanan, Kamalakiran Vinjamuri and Somanath Dhandibotla. The video, audio, editing, mastering and mixing were done by Somanath Dhandibotla.  All the participants are from various states in US.

Many prominent figures from the world of Carnatic classical music gave positive reviews and this Youtube video is getting lot of positive acclamations.

Kalaimamani  Sri Unnikrishnan appreciated the efforts of youngsters for arranging a precise orchestration. “Must have been quite a task. Everybody has sung and played very well. In unison. Convey my Best wishes to the entire team,” he said.

Sangita Kalanidhi Padma Bhushan Smt. Sudha Raghunathan gave her appreciation and observed, “Wonderful effort ji! Joara paadi vaasitchirka!”

Please watch this rendition at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEdmK49Iyhc