Rudrapatnam Brothers | |
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Origin | Arkalgud, Karnataka, India |
Genres | Carnatic, Classical |
Years active | 1956 | – present
Members | Shri R.N. Thyagarajan & Shri R.N. Tharanathan |
The Rudrapatnam Brothers are an Indian Carnatic vocal duo, consisting of brothers R. N. Thyagarajan and R. N. Tharanathan. The brothers come from a family of musicians from Rudrapatna village off the Kaveri banks in Arkalgud Thaluk of Hassan district in the southwest Indian state of Karnataka. Vocalist Tiger Varadachariar, on seeing the musical atmosphere there, once claimed that “Rudrapatnam is the Thanjavur of Karnataka”. Music, Veda adhyayana, and studying Sanskrit were integral parts of their family tradition.
They are grandsons of R. K. Krishna Sastry, a musician, Harikatha exponent, playwright and a Sanskrit and Kannada scholar. They are sons of R. K. Narayana Swamy, a disciple of Musiri Subramania Iyer, the doyen of Carnatic music. Their uncles are R. K. Venkatarama Sastry, R. K. Ramanathan and R. K. Srikantan.
They were initiated into Carnatic music and trained by their father and Sastry, the famous violinist and disciple of Mysore T. Chowdiah.
Thyagarajan earned a M.Sc. in mathematics and worked as a lecturer in mathematics for several years before joining All India Radio in 1976. He was the Assistant Director, Chennai Doordarshan Kendra and retired as Deputy Director, Doordarshan Kendra, Bangalore in 2003.
Tharanathan earned a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in organic chemistry and was a Chemistry Lecturer and retired as Additional Director, Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition in Central Food Technological Research Institute (C.F.T.R.I), Mysore. He was a visiting professor and Fellow at Max Planck Society, Germany and a recipient of Alexander Von Humboldt Fellowship. He has visited Germany several times and worked on research projects.