Vijay B Natesan

Born in 1981,Vijay began showing signs of prodigal talents when he was barely 2 years old. The much needed exposure to Classical Music was given by his parents from his tender age and soon started displaying his inherent rhythmic instinct of playing on the mridangam, Guru T.S.Nandakumar commenced giving him well-structured training from the age of five.

From the age of seven, he started providing Mridangam accompaniment for concerts organized by popular institutions. He ensured a place in the full length Percussion Ensemble concerts presented by Guru Nandakumar under the auspices of popular institutions like Sri.Shanmukhananda Fine Arts, N.C.P.A, Nehru Centre; Sur Singar Samsad; Swar Sadhana Samiti; T.V.G's Academy of Indian Music and Arts, Madras. He was awarded the Rolling Trophy by Swar Sadhana Samiti for being best among the age group of 6 to 16 years at the age of 9.

Vijay stood first in the All India Radio Music Competition held in 1997 and is also the recipient of the Government of India scholarship under their Cultural Talent Search Scheme.He has to his credit three volumes of audio cassette series JEWELS of RHYTHM produced by his Guru.

A first prize in the national level competition held under the guidance of Sangeet Martand Pandit Jasraj gave him an opportunity to perform at the prestigious Pandit Jasraj Auditorium in New York.

Vijay has accompanied stalwarts in Carnatic Music like Prof.T.N.Krishnan, Dr. Prof. T. V. Gopalakrishnan, Shri. O. S. Thyagarajan, Shri. G. S. Mani, Smt. Kanyakumari, Smt. Sowmya et.al. and also has had the privilege of featuring in a T.V. serial with the tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and versatile singer Shankar Mahadevan. He also regularly accompanies his sister Vidya Harikrishna ,who is a distinguished Carnatic Vocalist. Vijay is also a regular feature in a musical ensemble called Aakruti which is started by the young singing sensation Parthiv Gohil. Recently Vijay has provided percussion support in an instrumental album called Silver Lining released by HMV – SaReGaMa.

While being graded A with the All India Radio, Vijay is also pursuing his Masters in Management Studies from Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai. Other than Carnatic Music ,Vijay likes listening to Hindustani, Bhajans and Ghazals.




Contact: balan.natesan@gmail.com