Mridangam - Famous Mridangists

Famous Mridangists

Over the years and especially during the early 20th century, great maestros of mridangam also arose, inevitably defining "schools" of mridangam with distinct playing styles. Examples include the Puddukottai school and the Thanjavur school. The virtuosos Palani Subramaniam Pillai, Palghat Mani Iyer, C.S. Murugabhupathy and contributed so much to the art that they are often referred to as the Mridangam Trinity.

There is also another style i.e., the blending of Saakotai Rangu Iyengar's and Kumbakonam Azhaganambi Pillai's taught to hundreds of disciples by the legendary Late Sri Kumbakonam Narayanaswamy Iyer and late Sri Kumbakonam Rajappa Iyer.

Other Veteran mridangam maestros of the past/present include:

• Late Palghat R. Raghu
• Late Sri Mavelikkara KrishnankuttyNair
• Late Prof. Mavelikkara Velukkutty Nair
• Late Sri Vellore Ramabhadran
• Late Sri Mahadevu Radha Krishna Raju ( Mrudanga Bodhini (1976) - this book is a legendary book forever and this is the book where a common student can be a top graded musical artist and autort wrote the entire book that every person can understand)
• Dr. T. K. Murthy
• Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman
• Dr. Yella Venkateswar Rao
• Vidwan M. Vasudevarao
• Guruvayur Dorai
• Karaikudi Mani
• Mannargudi Easwaran
• Trichy Sankaran
• Srimushnam V. Raja Rao
• Mahadevu Lakshmi Narayana Raju
• Thiruppampuram R. Dhandapany

Young Mridangam Masters as of today include:

• Thiruvarur Bakthavathsalam
• Arjun Narayanan
• Sri V.S.Rajgopal
• Pudukottai Rajagopal
• Madurai T. Srinivasan
• Thiruvananthapuram V.Surendran
• Trichur C Narendran
• T.R.Sundaresan
• AV Anand
• L Vaidhyanathan
• Kumbakonam Padmanabhan
• Neiveli Narayanan
• Changanassery Harikumar
• Bombay K. B. Ganesh
• K V Prasad
• H. S. Sudhindra
• R Vydianathan
• Anoor Anantha Krishna Sharma
• Erickavu N. Sunil
• Trivandrum Balaji
• Mannarkoil J Balaji
• Patri Satish Kumar
• Ambathur K Babu
• Palghat Mahesh Kumar
• C. Cheluvaraj
• Rajesh Srinivasan
• Elanjimel Susheelkumar
• Ayngaran and Arunesh Ravi
• Alathur PB Krishnan
• K.R Ganesh