Radha Viswanathan

Radha Viswanathan aged 77 years is the daughter & sole disciple of Bharat Ratna M.S.Subbulakshmi.

Radha had her early training in music from T.R. Balasubramaniam, Ramnad Krishnan and Mayavaram Krishna Iyer. She began accompanying her mother on stage at age of 5. She combined this with intensive training in dance from Vazhavoor Ramiah Pillai (she was, in fact, his first disciple along with Anandhi Ramachandran, daughter of Kalki Krishnamurthy) and made a reputation for herself as a top notch Bharatanatyam dancer, making her arangetram (debut) in 1945. Radha and Anandhi would perform while M.S. sang Padams.Radha also performed an exclusive dance recital at the Carnatic Music College, Madras, for the violinist Yehudi Menuhin. She danced at Birla House before Mahatma Gandhi for a Meera Bhajan - 'Ghanashyam Aayaari' with M.S. singing for her. At the age of 21, Radha gave up dancing to concentrate exclusively on singing. Radha was to soon become a vital force in MS concerts. M.S. and Radha jointly learnt Kritis from Musiri Subramania Iyer, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and K.V. Narayanaswamy and Padams from T. Brinda. They also had intensive training in Hindustani classical music from Siddheshwari Devi of Benares and Dilipkumar Roy.

When she was 6 years old, Radha made her debut in films as Bharata in Shakunthala and as 'Bala Meera' which was directed by Ellis R. Dungan and produced by her father T.Sadasivam's company Chandraprabha Cinetones. In Meera she danced with Kumari Kamala who acted as Krishna. Meera was made in both Tamil and Hindi with the premiere of the latter version in 1947, being inaugurated by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru himself. Lord and Lady Mountbatten, Rajendra Prasad, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and Indira Gandhi attended the premiere as well.

Radha is an excellent Guru who has won accolades from none other than the great Semmangudi himself and she continues to teach music. Amongst her disciples are Anuradha - daughter of the late KVN), Sikkil Gurucharan,Mahesh Vinayakaram (son of the Ghatam Maestro - Vikku Vinayakram), Navaneet Krishnan, P.T Seshadri & Balaji Shankar (disciple of the late DKJ)