Sri Mahadevu Radhakrishna Raju Memorial Charitable Trust founded by the late mridangam vidwan M. Lakshminarayana Raju (son of Radhakrishna Raju) , conducted his first vardhanthi at Gokaraju Laila Gangaraju Kala Vedika. An unexpectedly large number of Lakshminarayana Raju’s sishya prasishyas and scores of his admirers attended the proceedings conducted by more than 50 sishya prasishyas of Raju under the leadership of Raju’s prime disciple Parupalli Subbaraya Phalgun.
Lakshminarayana Raju was not only an internationally renowned vidwan but also an ideal guru. The Trust simultaneously conducted the vardhanthis of great mridanga vidwans of yesteryears Potluri Veeraraghaviah Chowdary (74th) , M.Radhakrishna Raju (27th) and Dandamudi Ramamohan Rao (6th).
Well-known mridanga vidwans K.Yogish and N.S. Kalyanaraman spoke praising Lakshminarayana Raju’s warm and helping nature and his excellence in teaching. The Trust instituted an annual award `Lakshminarayana Raju Memorial Yuva Puraskar’ and the first award was given to vidwan Kotipalli Ramesh, mridangam lecturer in the S.V.Music College, Tirupathi.
Following the meeting three thrilling ensembles were superbly presented by sub-junior, junior and senior mridangam artistes. All three batches of artistes gave unforgettable laya vinyasams to repeated, resounding applause from audience. The sub-juniors were Kartikeya Adinarayana Sarma, Rohit, Sashank, Siva Shanker, K.Mahesh, M.Venkatesh, Subramanyam and Sivananda. K.S.Govindarajan, principal of the music college and Nandini Sai Giridhar of Chennai gave veena and violin leads.
The juniors comprising B. Ramakrishna, Srinivas, K.Aravind, Raghuram, Anil Kumar and I.Anjaneya Sastri (ghatam). Among the seniors were P.S.Phalgun, Sai Giridhar, Balu, and B.Srinivas. M.Haribabu, S.Hanumanta Rao and Phanibhushan played ghatams. The entire program was efficiently compered by P.S.Phalgun who also led the mridanga vinyasam of the senior batch.
