About My First Mridangam Guru Sri PG Lakshminarayana

I wanted inform you all about my first Mridangam Guru Sri "PG Lakshminarayana", from whom I learnt Mridangam from beginning up to a concert performer. Who was a wonderful teacher, great performer & more over a great human being. He was inspiring me in all the ways, he didn't teach me Mridangam, but he taught me a 'Life'. He was such a guru. He was the one who always motivated me to become a Professional Mridangam artiste & gave me courage. He was making all of his students to listen other stalwarts playing. So I thought of writing few things about my guru Sri PGL.

           P G Lakshminarayana:   

Mridangam maestro Vidwan PG Lakshminarayana (7-9-1936 to 12-12-206). He was a disciple of Vidwan Sri M.R.Rajappa, who was an Asthana Vidwan of Mysore Palace. Sri PG Lakshminarayana was fondly called as 'PGL' by his friends & colleagues. He was a foremost Mridangam exponent of south India. He was also an expert player in MORSING instrument. He has also worked as a staff artiste (Mridangam) for All India Radio, Mysore.
     He has accompanied galaxy of musicians in his career of over five decades. He has accompanied Sri Violin virtuoso sri Mysore Chowdiah, B Devendrappa, Sri Titte Krishna Iyyengar, Mangalampalli Balamurlikrishna, MS Subbalakshmi, Sri DK Pattamal,Bombay Sisters,  Sri ML Vasanthakumari, KJ Yesudas, V.Doreseamy Iyyengar, Sri T R Mahalingam, sri Lalgudi Jayaraman, Parur MS Gopalakrishnan, Sri Kunnukudy Vaidyanathan, Sri DK Jayaraman, Dr.N Ramani,  Sri RK Srikantan, TV Sankaranarayana,Sri RK Suryanarayan, M Chandrasekharan, TN Sheshagopalan, TV Gopalakrishnan, Bellary brothers, Sri Mysore Mahadevappa, Kadri Gopalnath, Mandolin U Srinivas, Mysore Brothers(Sri Nagraj & Dr M Manjunath), TM Krishna, Sanjay Subramaniam, Chitraveena Ravikiran, Ms Sheela, Sri Kamala-Rajalakshmi (Mysore Sisters),Sri RK Padmanabha etc & also encouraged a lot of youngsters of Karnataka & accompanied them in concerts
        He has received wide acclaim for his Jughalbhandi concerts with Verna Doreswamy Iyyengar & V.G.Jog., Usthad Amjad Ali Khan & many others & participated in many International Percussion ensembles.
He has widely toured South eastern countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Srilanka, Bangkok & carried our Indian culture especially of Royal Mysore.
His tonal quality of Mridangam, Nada sowkhya, complex mathematical calculations was a Hallmark of his Style.

  Awards & Tittles:
* He was an Asthana Vidwan of Sri Ganapathi Sachidananda Ashram, Mysore.
* Mridangam Virtuso 'Palani Subramanya Pillai' Award & ''Laya Kala Nipuna" award from Percussive Arts Centre,Bangalore,
* "Gana Kala Bhushana" tittle from Bangalore Gana Kala Parishath & also he was elected as a President of the conference by expert musicians committee in the year 2002.
* "Karnataka Kalashree " from Karnataka Sangeetha Nrithya academy.
* "Swaralaya shrunga" from Suswaralaya college of Music, Bangalore.
* He was decorated with many tittles like 'Kala Tapasvi', Layavadya Bhooshana, Thalavadya Vidya Varidhi, Thalavadya Praveena..etc, from his fans & various music sabhas 

Disciples:
Vidwan Sri PG Lakshminarayana dedicated his entire life to Mridangam, He breathed only music & stayed bachelor in his entire life. He was a 'Bhishma Pithamaha' for Mridangam in Karnataka. He trained numerous students wholeheartedly without monetary expectations. He was always surrounded fondly by his disciples.He was an university & gifted many talented musicians who has excelled & earned reputation in the music arena. Few of them are: Mridangam & Ghatam Vidwan sri M.A.Krishnamurthy, Sri G.S.Ramanujam, Morsing Vidwan Sri V.S.Ramesh,Sri RK Prasanna Kumar, Sri T.A.Ramanujan, Sri A.Radhesh, Sri Mysore L Vadiraj, Sri B.S.Raghunandan, D.Vijayanand, M.N.Keshav Sundar, Shyam,Jagadhish & many more. He passed away on December 12th 2006, His disciples & music lovers are paying tribute on every December 13th & 14th by honouring musicians & Organising concerts& also doing Charity to Orphanage in his name.