City’s own maestro honoured

‘Interest in music should be inculcated from childhood’

Noted violinist MSN Murthy giving a violin concert along with his wife Pantula Rama, after receiving the Padma Shri Dwaram Venkata Swami Naidu Puraskar at the Visakha Music Academy's 43rd annual festival of music and dance at Kalabharathi in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday. Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

City-based violin exponent Mutnuri Srinivasa Narasimha Murthy popularly known as MSN Murthy was honoured with Visakha Music Academy’s prestigious Dwaram Venkata Swamy Naidu award on the second day of the ongoing six-day festival of music and dance.

Judge ACB Court Visakhapatnam G.V. Krishnaiah, who was the chief guest, and chief patron of the academy S Vijayakumar gave away the award and felicitated the maestro. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Krishnaiah said that interest in music should be inculcated from childhood. Nowadays the school time itself was stretched beyond 7 p.m. leaving little scope for children to pursue their interests in fine arts, he observed.

He complimented the VMA for choosing city-based maestro for the award named after legendary violinist Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu.

Director of the Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL) and the president of the Academy S Rangarajan said that parents should encourage their children to pursue classical arts and fondly recalled his long association with Mr MSN Murthy over decades.

Ramgopal of Bothra Shipping Services, who was the guest of honour, said that promotion of classical arts was a corporate social responsibility and it in turn promoteed social harmony making society a better place to live in. Secretary of the academy MS Srinivas,

Surndari Ramachandran, Sripada Venkanna, Vaddiparthi Narasayya, Krishna Rao and KV Ramamurthy took part.

Later, MSN Murthy’s violin concert delighted the music buffs.