 Young mridangist from Maryland
Kumari Rajna Swaminathan with her guru
Sangeeta Kalanidhi
Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman
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Rajna Swaminathan (daughter of P K Swaminathan and Lalitha Swaminathan), a 15-year old 9th grader in Paint Branch High School in Maryland (USA), is an upcoming young Carnatic percussionist.
She started learning mridangam from her father, Dr P K Swaminathan, at the age of 5 and three years later came under the tutelage of Sangeetha Kalanidhi Umayalpuram K.
Sivaraman.
In recent years she has been getting intensive instruction from the mridangam maestro.
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Rajna had her debut performance (arangEtram), a 2-hour concert, in October 2004 under the auspices of the Chinmaya Mission, Maryland, with Nemani Somayajulu on jalatarangam, Nagai Sriram on violin, and E M Subramaniam on ghatam. She has performed at the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana festival for the past two seasons and was featured on a Jaya TV broadcast. She has accompanied Flute Shashank, Carnatica Brothers, Sikkil Gurucharan and nagaswaram artistes Kasim and Babu. In combination with her father, she has also accompanied several other artistes such as Dr N Ramani, Rudrapatnam Brothers, and Charumati Ramachandran, to name a few.
 Rajna appeared on the Chennai music circle in the summer of 2005 and performed in six concerts earning accolades from musicians, music rasikas and music sponsors alike. This paved the way for her to have a successful December 2005 season in Chennai. She performed in 14 concerts, including a stint on the New Year bash at the Music Academy, a significant achievement for a young newcomer. Rajna is the youngest of a handful of female mridangam players in the world. In addition to mridangam, she plays the piano too.
On the afternoon of May 14, 2006, in the auditorium of Green Hope High School in Cary, North Carolina, there was a triple-flute music concert by Dr N Ramani along with his son and grandson. The expectations were high not only because of Dr Ramani’s reputation as the foremost Carnatic flutist but he brought along his son (Thiagarajan) and grandson (Atul Kumar) too whom he has trained in his line of instrumental music. The three-hour concert by the trio lived up to the expectations and then some. It was a veritable feast for the ears. The percussion accompaniment was provided by Dr P K Swaminathan and Rajna Swaminathan. While the mridangam duo took turns in playing for the kritis, Rajna’s adroitness and technical acumen were quite evident throughout the concert. She got more than a fair share of action, encouraged by maestro, Dr Ramani. During the percussion solo (tani), she proved equal to her father, matching him stroke for stroke and displaying a depth of laya knowledge, hardly showing any strain during the performance which speaks of her rigorous training.
Rajna demonstrates great promise and is the female counterpart of the US teenage male Carnatic percussionist, Rohan Krishnamurthy (Kalamazoo, Michigan) and this writer won’t be surprised if young Rajna is sought after more and more by visiting Indian Carnatic vocal and instrumental artistes for percussion accompaniment. She has earned and is still earning her laurels. She still has more peaks to climb before she attains a full-fledged mridangist status in her own right, of which this writer is confident she will.
Dr. Sethuraman Subramanian
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
mahakavius@yahoo.com
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