Indian Postal Department today released set of 3 stamps on Indian Musicians of yesteryears.Musician Depicted on the stamp is Thanjavur Balasaraswati.
Thanjavur Balasaraswati was a seventh generation representative of a traditional matrilineal family of musicians and dancers who have been described as the greatest single repository of the traditional performing arts of music and dance of the southern region of India Her anscestor Papammal was a musician and dancer patronized in the mid-eighteenth century by the court of Thanjavur. Her grandmother Vina Dhanammal (1867-1938) is considered by many to be the most influential musician of the early twentieth century. Her mother, Jayammal (1890-1967) was a singer who encouraged the training of Balasaraswati and was Balasaraswati's accompanist.
Balasaraswati created a revolution in hereditary music and dance for bharata natyam, a combination of the performance arts of music and dance. Balasaraswati learned music within the family from her infancy, and her rigorous training in dance was begun when she was four under the distinguished dance teacher K. Kandappan Pillai, a member of the famed Thanjavur Nattuvanar family. Her younger brothers were the musicians T. Ranganathan and T. Viswanathanwho would both become prominent performers and teachers in India and the United States. Her daughter, Lakshmi Knight (1943-2001), became a distinguished performer of her mother's style. Her grandson Aniruddha Knight continues to perform the family style today, and is artistic director of Bala Music and Dance Association in the United States and the Balasaraswati School of Dance in India. Her son-in-law Douglas M. Knight, Jr has written her biography with the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003).
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