DR. N RAJAM, VIOLINIST - THE RARE MUSICAL GENIUS

Abstract [English]

With the technological revolution breaking all cultural barriers, the innovations in Art and Music are no longer localized or limited to one nation, but is influencing and impacting the cultures of the whole globe. A musical instrument, violin, popular in the Western world has been showing its increasing prominence in the music world of India also since the last more than two centuries and the proponents of violin in India have played a crucial role in bringing forth its potentiality and versatility. Dr N Rajam, a rare musical genius of Tamil Nadu in South India well versed in the Carnatic Musical system of violin-playing stretched the limits of the creative imagination and brought into action a violin technique in the Hindustani Classical Music of North India called the ‘Khayal Gayaki Ang’, adapting the vocal style of Carnatic music on the Hindustani violin. This innovation largely changed and added to the prevailing violin- playing  style of North India and had universal appeal, as the outcome of this experiment was the ‘singing violin’, which had a national and a global impact. The aim of this article is to study her life and works in depth to analyze and highlight the factors contributing to her astounding success and the lessons to be learnt from her life and intense ‘sadhana’ which is beneficial to all humanity for there is a dire need of good music in these pressing times.