|
New light on Purandara Dasa
 The pitamaha of Carnatic music is a personality who lives in his songs. Very little is known about him in terms of facts. A number of anecdotes and incidents abound, which add colour to his life and at the same time blur Purandara Dasa the man.
In this context, it was very interesting to receive a power point presentation from Prabhakar Chitrapu, a sangeethamite who lives in the US. He has put together a presentation that raises a number of issues on Purandara Dasa and throws light on a number of facets. Of course, we do not have the commentary that was given while these slides were onscreen. But the flow of the presentation is quite smooth and it is very informative. We have, therefore, made this available for all our readers.
Prabhakar Chitrapu lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia in USA. By profession, he is an electrical engineer, working for a wireless telecommunications company called InterDigital Communications. He is also an adjunct professor in the ECE Departments of Villanova University and Drexel University. He is very interested in Carnatic music, especially in the lives of musicians, the meanings of the lyrics of the kritis and the emotional content of the music.
His favorite composers are Tyagaraja and Annamacharya. He maintains a website and has a personal collection of some 400 kritis of Tyagaraja sung by over 50 vocalists. He has translated a number of kritis from Telugu to English and written several essays in appreciation of Carnatic music. Prabhakar has been active in the local Carnatic music organisation called Sruti, and was involved in the organisation of concerts of many visiting artistes from India.
Prabhakar is married to Uma and has two children Anjani and Anil.
The Purandara Dasa presentation was originally prepared for and presented at the Purandara jayanti organised by the local Kannada association called Triveni on February 16, 2002.
Powered by Sangeetham.com
|
