The prestigious Percussive Arts Centre of Bangalore (Palghat Mani Iyer Memorial Arts Centre) conducts Talavadyotsav every year in a big way. Talavadyotsav-2016, a festival of percussive arts and music conference was conducted for four days. Life time achievement awards were instituted by the Centre in memory of legendary percussive artistes like Palghat Mani Iyer, Palani Subramanyam Pillai, Bengaluru K. Venkataraman, H. Puttachar and G.S. Sriram.
This year mridanga vidushi Dandamudi Sumathi Ramamohan Rao of Vijayawada received the coveted Palani Subramanyam Memorial Award for her eminence in mridanga vadyam. The wife and disciple of famed mridanga vidwan Dandamudi Ramamohan Rao, Sumathi is an A-grade artiste of Akashvani and Doordarshan and belongs to Palani Subramanyam bani. She learnt the preliminaries from father Nidumolu Raghavaiah and Mahadevu Radhakrishna Raju and received her advanced training from her husband Dandamudi Ramamohan Rao. She travelled widely and in a mridangam playing career spanning 25 years, she accompanied many eminent vocal and instrumental vidwans for concerts in the country and abroad. A few years ago she also received the Central Sangeet Natak Akademy award. She worked for more than 20 years as a mridangam lecturer in the G.V.R. Government College of music and trained a large number of disciples in mridanga vadyam. Sumathi Ramamohan Rao established a sabha named Laya Vedika which provides stage for only percussive instrumentalists.
