India’s violin prodigy, Dr Lakshminarayana Subramaniam was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. His parents were both well known musicians of their time. Though he is a registered medical practitioner and has an MBBS degree from Madras Medical College, he preferred being a musician. This is the reason why he enrolled for a Master’s Degree at California Institute of Arts. Also, since he had been performing when he was six, he felt it came naturally to him.
It was from 1973 onwards that he was to become the worldwide phenomenon that he is - when he started performing with the likes of, on the one hand, stalwarts of world music like Herbie Hancock, Joe Sample, Stanley Clarke and Yehudi Menuhin and, renowned Carnatic musicians like Dr Pinakapani, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and M Balamuralikrishna.
Apart from performing as a musician, he has composed for a number of orchestras and ballets, the significant ones being ‘Fantasy on Vedic Chants’ conducted by Zubin Mehta or the ‘Concerts of Two Violins’ with Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Also, he has composed music for a number of Hollywood as well as Indian crossover films like “Mississippi Masala” (1991), “Salaam Bombay” (1988) and “Little Buddha” (1993). His achievements have, as is expected, led him into winning a number of awards. Apart from being titled the ‘Violin Chakravarthy’ by the Governor of Tamil Nadu, he received a Special Medal of Honour from King Birendra of Nepal in 1997, the Lotus Festival Award at Los Angeles in 1998 and the Padma Bhushan in 2001. He is married to renowned singer Kavita Krishnamurthy.
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