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Pulling strings
 She
was not yet out of school and already had a cassette released of her violin
recital. That is young achiever Charumathy Raghuraman for you.
A student of Vidya Mandir,
Mylapore, Chennai, she impressed Alathur Vijayakumar with her violin playing
that he decided to release her first solo cassette under his own label ‘Kalavardhini’.
The cassette, released in
December 2003, - when Charu was in plus-1 - has been receiving very encouraging
reviews from leading music critics across Tamil Nadu.
Born
on May 16, 1987, Charumathy has come a long way in establishing herself as a
talented young violinist in Chennai – she and mother moved in from Mumbai just
so that she could develop her talent and get better exposure.
Moving to the metropolis just
to improve her skills under Prof T N Krishnan proves her determination and the
confidence she has in her ability to make it big in the highly competitive world
of music.
Charumathy was born in Mumbai
and started her initial violin training at the Bhaktha Rasika Ranjani Sabha (BRRS)
in Anushakthi Nagar, Mumbai, at the tender age of four. Soon her parents were
able to spot her amazing musical grasp and when Prof Krishnan,who was in Mumbai
to attend a workshop, got to hear her, he immediately agreed to take her under
his fold.
 So, in 1999-2000 Charumathy and
her mother Rama Raghuraman (who is a Carnatic vocalist) moved to Chennai. Since
then there has been no looking back for young Charumathy. She has performed at
all the major sabhas, including Music Academy and Mylapore Fine Arts Club, for
the last three music seasons and has
entertained audience at a whole range of venues along with her guru.
Charumathy has given more than
240 concerts as accompanying artiste and has accompanied leading artistes like
Ravi Kiran, Sangeetha Shivakumar and Raji Gopalakrishnan among others.
Apart from training under
Krishnan from 1995 to 2001, she also trained as a vocalist under P
S Narayanaswamy from 1999 onwards.
It was not long before
recognition came her way. She has been awarded the ‘Parur Sundaram Iyer
Endowment Prize’ by Sri Krishna Gana Sabha and has received two junior
violinist awards from Music Academy - the C S Endowment Prize and the N V
Raghavan Memorial Award. She was promoted to the level of “sub senior
accompanying artiste” by the Music Academy during the 2003-04 season.
 Charumathy has just completed
her plus-2 and intends pursuing a commerce degree. The biggest inspiration for
her has been her elder sister, Rashmi, who, she says, has always pushed her
towards excellence. A big hit among her friends, Charumathy is very shy to talk
about her ambition. But her “ultimate dream in music would be to perform a
violin solo at the ‘Cleveland
Thyagarajar Utsavam’.”
Friendly feelings: We
caught up with a few of Charumathy’s friends and here is what they had to say
about her as a friend as well as a bright music prospect:
Soccer
dude Vinay, who has known Charu for the past four years, says it is her
simplicity coupled with her talent which is going to take her places.
Best
friend Apoorva Prasad just piles on praises starting from how wonderful a friend
she is to the hard work she puts in on her violin.
Singers Swathi and Krithika
literally sang me a long song in praise of Charu, which I could sing of course,
but I would like to spare your eardrums of the inhuman torture! Siddharth with
the ‘yo-man’ kind of attitude, just says, “She is a child prodigy, man!”
The highly scholarly T Karthik,
who has known Charu for the last five years, says he is really proud to have a
friend like her but claims she never lets him attend any of her concerts (so it
is a ‘ggrrrrr’ from Karthik). Nevertheless, the above written words would
have definitely proved to you guys what a rare talent Charumathy is.
So, I am very happy to claim
that a Chennaivasi scores high again.
V Eshwran
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