Aswathi Thirunal Rama Varma (born 13 August 1968), known colloquially as Prince Rama Varma, is an Indian classical musician and a member of the erstwhile Royal Family of Travancore. He is a Carnatic vocalist as well as an exponent of the

Saraswati Veena The Sarasvatī vīṇa (also spelled Saraswati vina) (Devanagari: सरस्वती वीणा (vīṇā), te, సరస్వతి వీణ, kan, ಸರಸ್ವತಿ ವೀಣೆ, ta, சரஸ்வதி வீணை, Malayalam ...

. He is also recognized as a music teacher, musicologist, writer and orator. He has performed at concerts and conducted music workshops all over

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and in several other countries including

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, UK,

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

UAE The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. YouTube videos of his concerts, classes and lecture-demonstrations are popular among music lovers, music students and professional musicians alike, and have exceeded 20 million views as of July 2022.

Early life

Rama Varma was born on 13 August 1968 and is a member of the Royal Family of Travancore. He is a direct descendant of Maharaja Swathi Thirunal. He started formal vocal music lessons in 1982 under Prof. Vechoor Harihara Subramania Iyer, a senior disciple of Dr. Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, who continued to be his Guru until his demise in 1994. Later, Varma went on to become a senior disciple of Dr. Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna. He also studied the Saraswathi Veena under Sri Trivandrum R. Venkataraman and Prof.K. S. Narayanaswamy.

Music career

Prince Rama Varma gave his maiden public performance in 1990, and released his first CD at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Since then, he has given concerts and talks in several notable venues across the globe including

Arsenal de Metz The Arsenal Concert Hall is a cultural venue dedicated specially to classical and art music and located near the Esplanade garden in Metz, capital of the Lorraine region, France. The Arsenal is home to the Orchestre National de Lorraine and al ...

, France; Zuiderpershuis, Belgium; the

Royal Tropical Institute The Royal Tropical Institute (Dutch: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, KIT) is an applied knowledge institute located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is an independent centre of expertise, education, intercultural cooperation and hospitality de ...

and The

Waag A weighhouse or weighing house is a public building at or within which goods are weighed. Most of these buildings were built before 1800, prior to the establishment of international standards for weights, and were often a large and representative ...

, Amsterdam; the Korzo Theatre in The Hague; The Hindu Lit for Life Literary festival; Alliance Francaise and the Madras Music Academy. He was invited to perform at the Rashtrapati Bhavan by the then president of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. Varma is recognized for his pioneering efforts to make classical music in its purest form appealing to the masses, by explaining the lyrics and background of every song during his concerts. His renditions are marked by purity of notes and clarity in enunciation of lyrics in any language. Through his concerts, he propagates rare compositions of well-known composers such as the Trinity ( Saint Tyagaraja,

Muthuswami Dikshitar Muthuswami Dikshitar (Mudduswamy Dikshitar)(, 24 March 1776 – 21 October 1835), mononymously Dikshitar, was a South Indian poet, singer and veena player, and a legendary composer of Indian classical music, who is considered one of the musical ...

, Syama Shastri), Maharaja Swati Thirunal,

Annamacharya Tallapaka Annamacharya ( Telugu : తాళ్ళపాక అన్నమాచార్య) ( IAST: taḷḷapāka annamācārya; 22 May 1408 – 4 April 1503), also popularly known as Annamayya, was a 15th-century Hindu saint and the e ...

and Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna, as well as compositions of lesser-known composers such as Etla Ramadasa, Kaiwara Amara Nareyana, Prayaga Rangadasa and Mallekonda Ramadasa

A fan of world music, Varma is inspired by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Kishore Kumar, K.L. Saigal, M.D. Ramanathan, Madurai Mani Iyer, Jacques Brel and Eartha Kitt among others. He is the subject of a

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

, ''Prince Rama Varma: Breaking Barriers, Building Bonds'' written by Lakshmy Menon on the occasion of his 50th birthday.

Teaching

Rama Varma's music classes and workshops are popular among music students ranging from beginners to professional musicians in India and abroad. He taught Indian music at the Rotterdam Conservatory, Codarts for many years. The Sri Venkateswara Bhakti Channel (SVBC) telecast over 200 episodes of his music lessons held at

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

and at Perla, a small village in North

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

. Varma attempts to transcend language barriers in music through his workshops by teaching, for instance,

Rabindra Sangeet ''Rabindra Sangeet'' ( bn, রবীন্দ্র সঙ্গীত; ), also known as Tagore Songs, are songs from the Indian subcontinent written and composed by the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

-speaking students and Malayalam compositions to students in

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

and

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and 3 ...

Music festivals

Rama Varma performing at Swathi Sangeethotsavam

Prince Rama Varma organises the

Swathi Sangeethotsavam Swathi Sangeethotsavam (Swathi Music Festival) is a ten-day festival of music celebrating the compositions of Maharaja Swathi Thirunal. The festival is held from 4 to 13 January every year at Kuthira Malika, Trivandrum, where the Maharaja is bel ...

, a 10-day annual festival held at the Kuthira Malika Palace in

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

from 4–13 January. The festival, dedicated exclusively to the compositions of Maharaja Swathi Thirunal, features maestros of Carnatic and Hindustani music, and attracts music aficionados from all over the globe. Varma also organises the annual Navarathri Mandapam concerts held in Trivandrum in connection with the

Navaratri Navaratri is an annual Hindu festival observed in the honour of the goddess Durga. It spans over nine nights (and ten days), first in the month of Chaitra (March/April of the Gregorian calendar), and again in the month of Sharada. It is o ...

festival. In 2006, he got veteran vocalist Parassala Ponnammal to perform there, and permitted women to attend the concerts, thus breaking a 300-year-old tradition of not allowing women inside the

Mandapam Mandapam is a panchayat town in Ramanathapuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The famed Pamban Railway bridge and Vehicular bridge lie to the East of this Panchayat Town. Mandapam is Tamil Nadu’s largest refugee camp for Sri L ...

References

External links

Video interview from webindia123.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rama Varma 1968 births Carnatic instrumentalists Male Carnatic singers Carnatic singers Living people People from Thiruvananthapuram Performers of Hindu music Travancore royal family Saraswati veena players Musicians from Kerala 20th-century Indian male classical singers 21st-century Indian male classical singers