Meet the Artist: May

“Meet the Artist” was an event sponsored by Sarangi and was hosted at the new Paduka Store in Alwarpet. The second edition featured “N. Vijay Siva”.

Vijay Siva’s background:

Born to Smt. Akhila Siva and Sr. A.N. Siva on 29th March, 1967, Vijay Siva did his schooling in Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary School, Chennai, graduated with a First Class from Vivekananda College, Chennai and secured Masters degree in Commerce from Madurai Kamaraj University.

Titles and Awards:

Vijay Siva exhibited a rare intuitive capacity to identify ragas at the age of four. Disciple of Sangita Kalanidhi Sri D.K. Jayaraman since 1977 and earlier learnt music from his mother, a vocal musician from Carnatic Music College, Chennai. Also an accomplished Mridangist with a B.High AIR Grade, having been trained by Kumbakonam Sri Rajappa Iyer. Vijay Siva has received a number of  prizes for both Carnatic music and mridangam, including first Prize for Thevaram, Tiruvachakam and Thiruppugazh in 1974 and the coveted “Rajaji Tamboora” in 1981 from Tamil Isai Sangam, Chennai. He also received first prize in Classical and Light Classical Music Competitions (1984) which were conducted by AIR. He was awarded titles like “Isai Peroli” (1995) from Karthik Fine Arts and received the “Youth Award for Excellence” by Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer Trust in 1995 and was the first recipient of “Kalki Krishnamurthy Award (1996)” presented by Kalki Krishnamurthy Memorial Trust, Chennai.

Interaction with the audience at Paduka Store:

Vijay Siva, as Margazhi.org’s Artist of the Month met rasikas in an interactive event aptly called “Meet the Artist”.  A select gathering of enthusiastic and adoring fans met Vijay at the aesthetic Paduka Store in Alwarpet. Over a cup of traditional filter coffee and hot evening snacks, one got to know more about the man and his music and his approach to life.

“ Being Natural” seemed to be the mantra that the singer follows both in his life and music. Vijay Siva says, a person needs  to stick to  being natural and work upon what they feel comes naturally to them, and finds no point in being artificial or trying to force and dwell an action into anybody.

Vijay Siva articulated his views about copyright especially in the context of new age  technology. He explained how unauthorised access to music online is a long term negative, which would lead to a decline in the number of quality musicians in the future. He feels that the musicians dedicate their life for music and at the end of the day when the music is recorded by the audience and published online, it not only shows disrespect to the basic rights of the artist but also affects their certification of their own work before it is made available to the public. He requested the rasikas to respect the musician’s life dedication and not support the illegal or unauthorised publication of their music.

Other Hobbies:

Not many people know that Vijay has also been an active theatre actor. From childhood, he has taken part in many plays. He narrated a few roles he played as a Child artist and described the way he learnt the art of throwing his voice to the audience at a very young age, which has in turn taken him a long way in the field of music.  Vijay also says that to have a life without wrong thought and habits, it is important for a human and family to stay as simple as possible, he feels that what we earn and possess is secondary. When in our mind, action is clean and simple a person’s life is fruitful, happy and content.

Values learnt from Vijay:

Towards the end of the interaction with Vijay Siva, the audience not only learnt how life is as a musician but were also left with thoughts and values that would enhance a person’s life. He finished his interaction by stating that every human need to respect the country as much as they respect their Mother, Father and their Guru and understand the responsibilities of being a good human being. ­

Vijay Siva’s collection of audio discs  are available with us at Margazhi. Please write to us at editor@margazhi.org to own a personal copy.

At Sarangi, the Kanjivaram Sari Store, we are proud to have been part of this wonderful event and hope to be able to share with all of you details of many such events in the future.