Ghatam Udupa
Encyclopedia
Ghatam Giridhar Udupa is a TOP percussionist from India. He plays the ghatam
, which is a percussion instrument
used in Carnatic music
(South India
n classical music) . He is the son of Legendary Mridangam Vidwan Vidwan Ullur Nagendra Udupa.
degree for commerce
from Bangalore University
. Udupa also plays the Mridangam, Kanjira
and Morsing
. He also renders the Konnakol
(vocal rendition of percussion syllables).
. He has accompanied eminent musicians including Sarvashree Dr.L. Subramaniam
, Dr. M.Balamuralikrishna, M.S.Gopalkrishnan, R.K.Srikantan, T.N.Krishnan, T.K.Murthy, Palghat Raghu, Umayalpuram K.Sivaraman, A.K.Palanivel, Ganesh & Kumaresh, Mysore Nagaraj & Mysore Manjunath
, Mandolin Srinivas, N.Ramani, K.J.Yesudas, T.V.Gopalkrishnan, T.V. Sankaranarayanan, Madhurai T.N.Seshagopalan, Trichur V.Ramachandran, Jayanthi Kumaresh, R.K.Suryanarayana, Sudha Raghunathan and others.
Apart from playing authentic Carnatic Music, he has performed in many (Hindustani classical music
), fusion
, jazz
, blues
, flamenco
, Symphony Orchestra, Celtic Music
, Latin Music, DJ Music, World music
, Talavadya (Percussion Ensemble), Arabic Music, Japanese Music and Jugalbandhi
concerts and has been part of numerous International Music Festivals with renowned Indian Musicians like Dr.L.Subramaniam, Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Ustad Sultan Khan, Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Sivamani, Louis Banks, Niladri Kumar, Amit Heri, Lucky Ali, Kavita Krishnamurti Subramaniam, Fazal Qureshi, Bikram Ghosh, Ranjit Barot and Western Musicians like Larry Coryell, George Brooks, Ernie Watts, John Neptune
, Chico Freeman, Kai Eckhardt, Hubert Laws, Corky Siegel, Ivry gitlis, Lewis Pragasam, and others.
He has been part of several Global Symphony and Chamber Orchestras including Fairfax Symphony Orchestra (US), Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra (South Africa), State Philharmonic Orchestra of Sibiu (Romania), Sinfonia Baltica (Poland), Leipzig Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra (Germany) and Royal Symphony Orchestra of Oman.
Ghatam Giridhar Udupa is a founder Member of "Layatharanga", a team of Indian classical musicians who have embarked on creating new waves of music blending different forms of classical, folk and world music. To take his music to the global audience, he has teamed up with Poland based Flamenco Group “Indialucia” and France based Celtic Band “Nasha”.
Udupa has given concerts under the auspices of prestigious Sabhas all over India and abroad, including US, UK, Canada, South Africa, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Romania, Indonesia, Mauritius, Re Union Island, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangkok, Dubai, Muscat, Doha, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Ghatam
The ghaṭam is a percussion instrument used in the Carnatic music of South India. Its analogue in Rajasthan is known as the madga and pani mataqa "water jug"....
, which is a percussion instrument
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
used in Carnatic music
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
(South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
n classical music) . He is the son of Legendary Mridangam Vidwan Vidwan Ullur Nagendra Udupa.
Personal life
Ghatam Giridhar Udupa was born in 1980 to Mridangam musician Vidwan Ullur Nagendra Udupa.Born into a family of music and literature, rhythm flows in his blood. He took to music at an early age of 4. Indeed, like his father, he also wanted to be a Mridangam artist and for a few early years, he did concentrate only on Mridangam, but a chance performance by Vikku Vinayakram caught his imagination and he took to the Ghatam as his primary instrument. Since then, he has performed with various Carnatic instruments. He holds a graduateGraduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
degree for commerce
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
from Bangalore University
Bangalore University
Bangalore University is a public university located in Bangalore, Karnataka State, India. The university is one of the oldest in India, dating back to 1886...
. Udupa also plays the Mridangam, Kanjira
Kanjira
The kanjira, khanjira or ganjira, a South Indian frame drum, is an instrument of the tambourine family. It is used primarily in concerts of Carnatic music as a supporting instrument for the mridangam...
and Morsing
Morsing
A morsing is a wind percussion instrument, mainly used in the Carnatic music of South India and Sindh . It can be categorized under lamellophones, which is in the category of plucked idiophones...
. He also renders the Konnakol
Konnakol
Konnakol is the art of performing percussion syllables vocally in South Indian music, the Carnatic music - South Indian classical - performance art of vocal percussion. It is comparable in some respects to bol in Hindustani music, but allows the composition, performance or communication of rhythms...
(vocal rendition of percussion syllables).
Tutelage
Ghatam Giridhar Udupa took his initial training of percussion from his father Vidwan Ullur Nagendra Udupa, who taught him such instruments as Mridangam, Kanjira, and Ghatam. Later he became a student of Vidhushi Ghatam Sukanya Ramgopal and Vidwan Ghatam V.Suresh.Music career
Ghatam Giridhar Udupa is well known as an exponent of layered Carnatic musicCarnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
. He has accompanied eminent musicians including Sarvashree Dr.L. Subramaniam
L. Subramaniam
Dr. Lakshminarayana Subramaniam is an acclaimed Indian violinist, composer and conductor, trained in the classical Carnatic music tradition and Western classical music, and renowned for his virtuoso playing techniques and compositions in orchestral fusion.-Early years:Subramaniam was born to V...
, Dr. M.Balamuralikrishna, M.S.Gopalkrishnan, R.K.Srikantan, T.N.Krishnan, T.K.Murthy, Palghat Raghu, Umayalpuram K.Sivaraman, A.K.Palanivel, Ganesh & Kumaresh, Mysore Nagaraj & Mysore Manjunath
Mysore manjunath
- Child prodigy :Amazingly Gifted Violin Maestro Dr. Mysore Manjunath represents Carnatic classical music, one of the main branches of Indian music. He was born in the city of Mysore, which is a centre for music, in South India. He trained on the violin under his father, Prof...
, Mandolin Srinivas, N.Ramani, K.J.Yesudas, T.V.Gopalkrishnan, T.V. Sankaranarayanan, Madhurai T.N.Seshagopalan, Trichur V.Ramachandran, Jayanthi Kumaresh, R.K.Suryanarayana, Sudha Raghunathan and others.
Apart from playing authentic Carnatic Music, he has performed in many (Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music is the Hindustani or North Indian style of Indian classical music found throughout the northern Indian subcontinent. The style is sometimes called North Indian Classical Music or Shāstriya Sangeet...
), fusion
Fusion (music)
A fusion genre is music that combines two or more styles. For example, rock and roll originally developed as a fusion of blues, gospel and country music. The main characteristics of fusion genres are variations in tempo, rhythm, i a sometimes the use of long musical "journeys" that can be divided...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
, Symphony Orchestra, Celtic Music
Celtic music
Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe...
, Latin Music, DJ Music, World music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, Talavadya (Percussion Ensemble), Arabic Music, Japanese Music and Jugalbandhi
Jugalbandhi
A jugalbandi or jugalbandhi is a performance in Indian classical music that features a duet of two solo musicians...
concerts and has been part of numerous International Music Festivals with renowned Indian Musicians like Dr.L.Subramaniam, Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Ustad Sultan Khan, Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Sivamani, Louis Banks, Niladri Kumar, Amit Heri, Lucky Ali, Kavita Krishnamurti Subramaniam, Fazal Qureshi, Bikram Ghosh, Ranjit Barot and Western Musicians like Larry Coryell, George Brooks, Ernie Watts, John Neptune
John Kaizan Neptune
John Kaizan Neptune is an American player and builder of the shakuhachi . He is known particularly for his use of the instrument in non-traditional contexts, such as jazz and cross-cultural music.Neptune studied ethnomusicology at the University of Hawaii, where he began to study the shakuhachi...
, Chico Freeman, Kai Eckhardt, Hubert Laws, Corky Siegel, Ivry gitlis, Lewis Pragasam, and others.
He has been part of several Global Symphony and Chamber Orchestras including Fairfax Symphony Orchestra (US), Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra (South Africa), State Philharmonic Orchestra of Sibiu (Romania), Sinfonia Baltica (Poland), Leipzig Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra (Germany) and Royal Symphony Orchestra of Oman.
Ghatam Giridhar Udupa is a founder Member of "Layatharanga", a team of Indian classical musicians who have embarked on creating new waves of music blending different forms of classical, folk and world music. To take his music to the global audience, he has teamed up with Poland based Flamenco Group “Indialucia” and France based Celtic Band “Nasha”.
Udupa has given concerts under the auspices of prestigious Sabhas all over India and abroad, including US, UK, Canada, South Africa, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Romania, Indonesia, Mauritius, Re Union Island, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangkok, Dubai, Muscat, Doha, Bahrain and Kuwait.
External links
- Official Website
- You Tube official Channel
- Facebook Fan Page
- Concert Review in The Hindu
- - Ghatam Giridhar Udupa - a profile by Veejay Sai
- http://www.indiaelements.com/670
- http://worldmusiccentral.org/artists/artist_page.php?id=3905
- http://www.dhingana.com/video/ghatam-giridhar-udupa-with-drums-sivamani/related-1MPFbbppAt4?utm_source=video&utm_campaign=taf
- http://www.planetradiocity.com/musicopedia/music_instrumentalists.php?conid=1471
- http://library.thinkquest.org/08aug/00811/instrumentalists.html