He was more than just a violinist

A violinist par excellence; innovator of the seven-stringed violin;

Asthana vidhwan

in the Mysore court; a generous host and benevolent guru; a lover of fast cars; man who was larger than life — these are some of the ways people who knew

Tirumakudalu Chowdiah

described him. What tends to get overlooked or not mentioned as much as it should is the fact that Chowdiah was a deft composer — he’s composed at least 50 songs, mainly kritis and thillanas in Kannada, Sanskrit and Tulugu. While the songs are documented it was the difficulty she had in accessing them that would goad Carnatic vocalist Manasi Prasad to create an archive of Chowdiah’s compositions.

“In February last year, I was invited by

Bharatiya Samagana Sabha

to present a concert on Chowdiah’s compositions as part of a concert series on Mysuru’s composers. I was initially hesitant to do it because I didn’t know his compositions- this despite the fact that I in a way belonged to his parampara considering my mother learnt music from his student Prof V Ramarathnam,” says Prasad. Scouring through the internet didn’t amount to much. “I found two compositions but I needed vocal notations for the songs and there wasn’t anything available online. I eventually learnt the compositions from my mother and Chowdiah’s great grandson, the

flautist A Chandan Kumar

who sent recordings from Mysuru,” Prasad recalls.

Today, on Teacher’s Day, the archive of Chowdiah’s compositions that Prasad had envisioned comes alive in its digital avatar- www.chowdiah.com. It is being launched by the Shankar Mahadevan Academy Trust in collaboration with the Indian Music Experience museum of which Prasad is the director. In addition to his compositions — which have been rendered by Prasad, Bangalore Brothers S Ashok and MB Hariharan and Ranjini Vasuki, the website is also a repository of Chowdiah’s photos and articles written on him. “I was able to find 23 of his 50 compositions and we were able to record 17 songs before the lockdown. The past few months have been spent in sourcing other memorabilia of Chowdiah,” Prasad adds.

Preserving Indian classical music
Sridhar Ranganathan remembers the Aha! moment he had when he heard of a project that Hindustani classical vocalist Lalit J Rao and students were putting together of her guru Ustad Khadim Hussain Khan’s compositions. “Indian classical music, like yoga, is like a fig tree. It sprouts everywhere but in terms of cataloging its legacy, there’s very little that has been done. Which is why the Shankar Mahadevan Academy under the tag line Joy of Music decided to start Archive to Alive, in an attempt to ensure that compositions of musical maestros are alive and accessible,” says Ranganathan. “When I met Lalith J Rao and Tara Kini, we immediately offered to host the project,” he adds. The result is Naman Sajan Piya, an entire website dedicated to Khan who belonged to the Agra Gharana. It was something similar that transpired when Ranganathan heard of the Chowdiah archival project as well.

“You know, for the great violinist he was, the first thing that one associates with him is the Chowdiah Hall. There’s little else you know about him which is why when Manasi approached the academy for support, we decided to collaborate with IME in creating the online archive, which will be a window to the world of Chowdiah,” says Ranganathan who is founder trustee of the Shankar Mahadevan Academy Trust.

The trust helped set up the website and now plans to popularise it. “We are planning to hold an online contest of Chowdiah compositions starting October 25. Winners of the contest will get to interact online with Shankar Mahadevan and perform online for the IME’s public program series,” Ranganathan says.