Suguna Purushothaman who recently passed away has left a permanent mark on our musical traditions and even more than many other musicians, she has been a true torch bearer of her musical heritage as passed on to her by her great teachers, Musiri Subramanya Iyer and Chemmangudi Srinivasa Iyer.
Even at their highest levels, the older generation of female vocalists often kept their creativity quite subservient to the strict grammar passed on to them by their great teachers. Suguna Purushothaman was one such vocalist, preserving the musical heritage of her great teacher Musiri Subramanya Iyer. While externally keeping to the beats with full visibility to the audience is the normal practice of Carnatic musicians, synchronizing a kriti in two distinct beats , one with the left hand and another with the right hand showing the two distinct jathis and the common merge at specific spots of the musical phrases are great intellectual feats that were often attempted only by the veteran musicians of the bygone days . Perhaps the expansive tala patterns of thavil solos during temple festivals of the bygone days encouraged many veteran vocalists from Tanjore district to experiment with complex laya patterns that are quite unique to Carnatic music. Musicians like Mudikondan Venkatrama Iyer would sing a kriti in Simha Nandana Talam ( his prime disciple Sangeetha Kalanidhi R. Vedavalli used to demonstrate them at lecture demonstrations in the past). In more recent years I was stunned by a composition in Kalyani raga in praise of Kanchi Periyaval sung by Srivanchiyam Ramachandra Iyer in the complex Simha Nandana Talam at an Indian Fine Arts December season program.
However, very few musicians have willingly and successfully transferred what they possessed as advanced knowledge to the next generation of musicians. I can proudly say that Suguna Purushothaman is a true exception. She found that her prime disciple K. Gayathri is one who can absorb her knowledge and she willingly transferred her Tala skills using both hands with two different talas to K. Gayathri who actually demonstrated this in one of our CTU concerts.
I regret that we never had the right opportunity to have Suguna Purushothaman perform at CTU. There is no doubt that music lovers here would have gained so much from her classicism and knowledge.
Dr. T.E.S.Raghavan
Chairman