Musical tribute in Dubai for South Indian music's living legend

Eighty-nine year old veteran music composer V. Dakshinamoorthy is one who applied music lightly to the lyrics, as he himself put it.

This philosophy and approach to his craft has given us many golden hits from 1950 since his debut to the present day in both Malayalam and Tamil.

Dubai will have the opportunity to honour this living legend, on October 17 at the Shaikh Rashid Auditorium, Indian High School, Dubai.

Kalabhavan Dubai, a Countach Group venture, is organising the musical tribute in Dubai aptly titled Hridayasarassile.

Fittingly, also being felicitated at the function will be the lyricist Sreekumaran Thampi and the graceful P. Susheela.

Part of the proceeds from the concert — the sixth in the series by Kalabhavan Dubai — will go to Cochin Cancer Society.

An array of singers, led by veteran singers P. Susheela and P. Jayachandran, and supported by gifted young singers Vijay Yesudas, Madhu Balakrishnan and Shwetha Mohan, will bring alive scores of Dakshinamoorthy's evergreen numbers.
The concert will be enhanced with multi-media presentation of original movie clippings, comments from fellow musicians on each song and a documentary on the Dakshinamoorthy's life and work.

Living legend

The Carnatic semi-classical rendition of Dakshinamoorthy's songs gave them lasting appeal.

Dakshinamoorthy's long association with Malyalam's romantic lyricist Sreekumaran Thampi gave us many memorable melodies. Their first hit together was Hrudaya sarassile.

He was also instrumental in introducing many new singers to Malayalam films P. Susheela is one of them.

Her song Pattu padiyurakkam njan in the 1960 film Seetha is still one of most popular lullabies.

Dakshinamoorthy can also claim the distinction of having had singers of three generations of one family singing for him – Augustin Joseph (in Nalla Thanka), K.J. Yesudas (scores of films) and Vijay Yesudas (for Poomukhappadiyil Ninneym Kathu).

R. K. Shekhar, father of the music director A. R. Rahman was Dakshinamoorthy 's assistant for a few films, before becoming a musician in his own right.

Concert details

Date: October 17
Venue: Shaikh Rashid Auditorium,
Time: 6pm
Admission: Invited audience
Contact: Kalabhavan Dubai
Tel: 04-3350189, 050-4857286