Anil Srinivasan, who started Rhapsody Music Foundation to help underprivileged children learn music, narrates how he became a classical pianist after doing a Master's in Business Management in the US
Anil Srinivasan is a Carnatic classical pianist who has collaborated with many Indian and international artists, but there is much more to him than that.
Recently, 30 under-privileged children from Chennai's municipal schools gave a Carnatic music recital, and the man who made it possible was Srinivasan through the Rhapsody Music Foundation that he founded.
In this interview, the pianist talks about how Rhapsody came into being and how he became a classical pianist after doing a Master's in Business Management in the US.
Introduction to music
When I was three, studying in kindergarten, I walked up to a piano in school and started playing it. That was the first time I saw a piano.
It became a big story in the school, I was told. Seeing this, Meena Radhakrishnan, the legendary Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer's daughter-in-law, took me as her disciple and that was how I was initiated properly into music and the piano.
Perhaps I am the only person in the history of music to have gone to Semmangudi's house to learn western classical music and the piano while all the others went there to learn vaaypaattu.
I learnt piano there till the age of nine. After that, Anna Verghese became my guru for a very long time.
I don't know what attracted me to the piano; it has always been a part of my life. I believe that the instrument chooses you, and not you choose the instrument. Otherwise, at age three, how was I attracted to a piano?
Meeting the legends of Carnatic music
I still remember the swing in front of Semmangudi's house and the easy-chair in the portico. After I finished my class, I used to see him sitting there with his coffee tumbler. The moment he saw me he would ask, "What did you learn today?" Whatever I said, he would say, "Very good". That is all I can remember of him. I was too young to have any meaningful conversation with him.
When I was 12 years old I met Lalgudi Jayaraman in Kodaikanal where his family and my family were on vacation. He taught me how to play three thillananas on the piano. He may be a violin player but he could play all the instruments.
He took me on as a student. Later, after I started working with his son and daughter, I came to know Lalgudi Mama much better.
The greatest thing about these two legends is that never once did they say, don't play the piano. They have been open and encouraging.
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