Bengaluru, Apr 23 (PTI) Renowned Chitraveena artiste N Ravikiran will be receiving the 25th SVN Memorial National Award on April 26 at the 87th Ramanavami Global Music Festival being held from April 6 to May 2 at SVN Memorial Hall, Nettigere village, Bengaluru South.

The award was instituted in memory of S V Narayanaswamy Rao, founder of Sree Ramaseva Mandali, and the man behind Ramanavami Global Music Festival, one of the oldest Indian classical music festivals being held in Bengaluru. This year is also the birth centenary year of Rao.

The music festival was first held in 1939.

The festival came about because Rao had managed to save Rs 4 from the money that he collected from his neighbours to celebrate Holi.

“So, my grandfather decided to use the money to organise a music concert to celebrate Ramanavami that followed the Holi festival. Since then, every year we have been organising music concerts. Even during Covid, we had online concerts,” said Abhijit Varadaraj, the organiser of the festival.

The festival went on to become an iconic event patronised by the then Maharaja of Mysore, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar. Later, stalwarts such as last Governor-General of India, C Rajagopalachari and the first vice-president of independent India Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, were invited as the chief guests, added S N Varadaraj, son of Rao and General Secretary and Managing Trustee of Sree Ramaseva Mandali, which organises the festival.

Varadaraj has been co-running the festival with his son from 2000, after his father passed away.

SVN Memorial National Award was first instituted in 2001 and was given to Carnatic music legend M S Subbulakshmi. Doyens of classical music like M Balamuralikrishna, Lalgudi G Jayaraman, N Ramani, Kunnakudi R Vaidyanathan, K J Yesudas, Umayalapuram K Shivaraman and Kadri Gopalanath were among those who had received the award in the last 25 years.

Incidentally, Ramanavami music festival is also where M S Subbulakshmi had performed the maximum number of concerts, added Abhijit. PTI JR ROH