Balamurali Krishna - Article in Deccan Chronicle for Music Festival 2010

‘Faith in destiny paved my way’
January 3rd, 2011
Shubashree Desikan

Innovation was known to be Dr M. Balamuralikrishna’s style even in the 1970s. ‘I love the new,’ he says, in reply to the question, ‘how do you tackle modernity?’ He continues, ‘Change is inevitable and unstoppable, and I always embrace it. Technology has so many new uses, like recording systems, mikes, computers and so on; we do not hesitate to make use of these things, so why shy away from change? Rather we should find people who made this possible and worship them!’
Balamurali, as he is popularly known, has been living true to this statement. It is well known that even at age sixteen, he had discovered new raagams. Yes, the new never held any fear for this gentleman. Even when his career was at a sensitive stage, he was never afraid of making his opinions felt, ‘I always had a strong faith that nothing could stop what was due to me from reaching me’.
He was the first musician to be presented three awards from the president for best musician, playback singer and composer. He corrects this, ‘I am not a musician, I come under the line of vaggeyakaara, like Syama Sastri, Muthuswamy Dikshitar, Thyagaraja and so on’. Of course he is famous for his classical compositions, but he has also composed music for a Malayalam film and even sung for a Bengali films. ‘I am famous in Bengal for my Ravindra Sangeeth I have two doctorates in this’, he interjects, ‘I love Tagore, he was a creator; he made his own music’.
He stopped singing in the music season fifteen years ago, when the season boomed into the mega event it is. ‘There are so many youngsters, all singing very well. They know the world better than us. No one can mislead them’, he speaks again with his brand of faith in the new. ‘Everything has its place, and what stands the test of time becomes classical. Once people criticized me, but today many people adopt my methods… call me guruji…’ Like the Music Academy, next to which he lives, he too is a living proof that having faith in oneself is an essential ingredient in an artist’s makeup.