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)
M.S. Subbulakshmi was remembered on the 97th birthday, and daughter Radha Viswanathan was felicitated