Voleti Venkateswarlu - Vocal

Voleti was an interesting man.
At the first look, you never thought he is such a great musician.
He was a bulky man!
But his silken voice was totally divine.
I heard a Punnagavarali on Hyderabad radio which I can never forget!

I found this write up on the net:

He was born in 1928 in Rajamundry, Andra Pradesh. He had his formal training in music from C. Achutaramaiah and Munuganti Venkatarao Pantulu. He polished his music with the veteran musician, Dr Sripada Pinakapani. He was fond of Hindustani music also and therefore he sang many Hindustani ragas at the end of his concerts - either as shlokas or bhajans . He graduated with a degree in music from Andhra University.



He worked in the All India Radio, Vijayawada as the Program Producer and he brought in some innovative programs. Bhakti ranjani and Sangita sikshana were his creations and they were very popular with listeners.

In his concerts, he mostly sang kritis of Tyagaraja, one or two compositions of Muthuswami Dikshitar, Shyama Sastri, Patnam Subramania Iyer and Tanjavur Ponnaiah Pillai. He sang javalis also. Kshetrayya padams and Narayana teertha tarangams would find a place in his concert repertoire. His raga alapanas, rendering kritis showed his style and creative imagination. Dr Sripada Pinakapani had remarked that he was impressed by Voleti’s musical knowledge and called him a genius. He further added that Voleti was one of the best musicians Andhra Pradesh has produced. Among the senior musicians he had high regard for include Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar and Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan. Their pictures adorned the living room of his home in Vijayawada.


He was fond of singing ragas like Begada, Varali, Ranjani, Hamsanandi, Hindolam and Pantuvarali. Of course, he did not exclude singing ragas like Todi, Kharaharapriya, Kalyani and Purvikalyani. Before he sang a kriti in Purvikalyani he would be elaborating panchama varja raga alapana for Purvikalyani, which was interesting. .The sancharas were clear and precise.


He never practiced for his concert. Before his concert he would be in a contemplative mood and would not talk much at all. Before the Sangita Sikshana program on the AIR, he would be humming or doing alapana in Hindustani ragas at the studios. However, as soon as the program or the song was announced on the radio he would quickly switch to the typical Carnatic style of singing. Such was his facility in changing from one style to another.

Here is an old Radio recording of Sri Voleti.

List of items:
01 Daridapu - Saveri
02 Sri Raghuvara - Kambhoji Part 1
03 Sri Raghuvara - Kambhoji Part 2
04 Entati Kuluke - Kalyani Javali
05 Akativelala - Revati
06 Brahmaiva - Misra Sivaranjami

Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=10f3f26dc390f408ab1eab3e9fa335caeb52b4077999a72f
 
Enjoy!
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