The Carnatic music community on Friday night mourned the loss of one of their greats — T.V. Sankaranarayanan — a vocalist who carried on the glorious tradition of Madurai Mani Iyer. He suddenly collapsed in his home.
What noted vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyan recorded recently on social media in his series, “On that Note”, captured the greatness of the music by Sankaranarayanan. It was about a concert held in the Music Academy in 1979. “Finally, he sang ‘Eppo Varuvaro’ and the audience just burst into applause. The kind of applause [he received] was reverberating. And then there were requests. Somebody was shouting this song, somebody was shouting that song. Then he sang the English note and finished the concert. We walked out and my mother was saying, ‘he brought in the soul of Madurai Mani Iyer’,” Mr. Sanjay recalled.
His narration captured the effect that Sankaranarayanan had on his audience. Mani Iyer died in 1968. In the following decades, it was his nephew…