Eleven-year-old S. Tridhaat from Bengaluru, one of the youngest disciples of the late Kadri Gopalnath, saxophone maestro, was the first to pay a musical tribute to his ‘guru’ with the song Paavana guru in the raga ‘Hamsanandi’, as a memorial to the musician was thrown open at his birth place in Bantwal on Sunday.
The memorial, with a statue of the artiste holding a saxophone, was dedicated on Gopalnath’s 71st birth anniversary about 35 km from Mangaluru. The memorial is spread over 2,000 sq. ft, and has a garden.
A plaque in Kannada at the memorial reads: “Music is a language which knows no boundaries of nation and dharma. It is a language of the heart.”
Family members of the late Padma Shri awardee have constructed the memorial in their own land in Bantwal, where he had been buried more than a year ago.
The artiste, born on December 6, 1949, had passed away in Mangaluru on October 11, 2019.
His son and music director Manikanth Kadri said the statue was made of…