Trichy Sankaran is an Indian percussionist, composer, scholar, and educator. He was awarded the Madras Music Academy's Sangeetha Kalanidhi in 2011. As a mridangamvidwan, he has been called a "doyen among the percussionists of India" in Sruti magazine.. Since the early 1970s, he has performed and recorded in a number of cross-cultural projects. In 2017, he was awarded the "Tiruchirapalli Carnatic Musicians Lifetime Achievement Award". Sankaran has lived in Toronto since 1971. He is the founder of the Tyagaraja Aradhana in Toronto and is a professor of music at York University. He has regularly performed at all leading organisations in Chennai every December Music Season and continues to accompany a wide array of top ranked musicians.
Early life
Born on 27 July 1942 in Thiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India, Sankaran had his early musical training first under his cousin, P. A. Venkataraman, and later became the star disciple of the legendary mridangam maestro, Pazhani Subramania Pillai. He made his debut at the age of 13 in a concert given by the Alathoor Brothers at Nanrudayan Temple in the town of Thiruchirapalli. Since then he has performed with many significant Carnatic musicians, including Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar and T. R. Mahalingam. He won the All India Radio gold medal in 1955 and the President of India award in 1958.
Teaching
Sankaran is the co-founder of the Indian Music Program and a Professor of Music at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he has been teaching since 1971. In addition, he has also conducted workshops and seminars at Wesleyan University, the Berklee College of Music, the University of Michigan, the California Institute of the Arts, the University of Illinois, McMaster University, Cornell University, and Dalhousie University. He has made valuable contributions at many scholarly conferences across North America and has also published a number of his works in the leading journals of the continent. He has also written a textbook on the mridangam, which defines the basic techniques and principles of Carnatic percussion, entitled The Rhythmic Principles & Practice of South Indian Drumming. In addition, in 2010 he authored a comprehensive textbook which focuses on the subject of solkattu titled The Art of Konnakkol. Trichy Sankaran is also an avid world class clinician, and has performed workshops and clinics internationally. He has collaborated with top ranking drummers and percussionists, such as Steve Smith, Peter Erskine, and Giovanni Hidalgo, among others. Sankaran is also the founder and artistic director of Kalalayam, an institution dedicated in cultivating the nuances and techniques of the Pudukkottai style of percussive embellishment. He has successfully trained many South Asian and North American students on the mridangam, kanjira, ghatam, tabla, and other Western percussion instruments. He was the pioneer in starting the Thyagaraja Festival in Toronto which has flourished into an annual event hosting a series of concerts featuring top ranked musicians from India, identifying and promoting talented youth in North America and endowing scholarships to students pursuing a career in music.
International tours
Sankaran has performed far and wide at major festivals in India, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and North America. With over half a century of concert experience in Carnatic music, he has accompanied over five generations of musicians.
Awards
As a performing artist of international repute, Sankaran has received numerous honours and awards. The titles include:
In addition to his usual traditional settings, he has performed with gamelan, jazz, electronic, and African music ensembles, and World Drums in fusion concerts. He has performed in jugalbandhi concerts with Ustad Vilayat Khan, V. G. Jog, Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Shanta Prasad, and Swapan Chaudhuri, to name a few. As a composer, Sankaran has to his credit numerous pieces in the genres of gamelan, jazz, traditional Western classical orchestra, and various instrumental ensembles respectively. Sankaran has also worked in the fields of jazz, electronic music, and free improvisation with the composers David Rosenboom, Richard Teitelbaum, Charlie Haden, Pauline Oliveros, Paul Plimley, the Jazz Orchestra of York University, Anthony Braxton, Dave Brubeck, Glen Velez, Nexus, and World Drums. In 1996, Sankaran was commissioned by leading Canadian Bharatanatyam dancer Lata Pada, C.M., to compose a contemporary work entitled 'TimeScape', for her dance company, Sampradaya Dance Creations.
Personal life
Sankaran lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in the district of North York. His daughter is the vocalist and pianist Suba Sankaran, with whom he and wind specialist Ernie Tollar perform as Trichy's Trio.
Discography
Released in North America
Instrumental ensemble/fusion
1975 – Suitable for framing – with David Rosenboom and J. B. Floyd
