![]() ![]() “Don’t ask about the saxophone, let's talk about music instead. Even as he recalled memories from his childhood, Kadri didn’t want to talk only about the saxophone during this interview. He had felt a deep, compelling attraction to the saxophone’s sound, and he could not be denied. At a time when the price of gold was Rs 110 for 10 grams, Kadri’s father Taniappan, a nadaswaram player himself, was reluctant to spend a princely Rs 800 for a brass ‘western’ instrument which could only be procured in Hyderabad. ![]() The band had a saxophone player, Lakshmi Narasimhaiah, after listening to whom Kadri was hooked. The band's speciality was that it played Carnatic krithis. ‘Nadaswaram is the king of instruments’ It was on a school trip to the Mysore Palace in 1965 that Kadri, as a 15-year-old boy from Mangaluru, first heard the Nadamuni military band. There can be no other explanation,” Kadri, 69, said, in a voice that had gone permanently hoarse playing one of the most demanding of wind instruments over a lifetime. Whether it is good or bad is a different thing, but the initial compulsion is karmic. When something draws you so strongly, usually there is a relationship with the past. “Why was I so attracted to the saxophone? I can say that both spiritually and emotionally it was my purva janma samskara. ![]() From 1977 right up to the end, the Padma Shri awardee enthralled audiences the world over with his masterly command on the western music instrument. Let him play.” Balamuralikrishna was not the only one whom Kadri Gopalnath’s saxophone had in raptures. To which he replied, “I am always singing here. When Kadri reached the end of his performance, the organisers went up to Balamuralikrishna to ask him to sing. “My disciple is playing a new instrument, you have to come and bless him,” TVG had told Balamuralikrishna – ‘TVG’s langoti dost’, as Kadri described the seniors’ friendship. Balamuralikrishna was to sing in the second half of the evening, and it was TVG who had specifically invited him. #One man band gadgets tvIn the audience was Kadri Gopalnath’s guru TV Gopalakrishnan (TVG), eager to launch his protégé on the grand stage. The year was 1977 and the venue, Chembai Memorial Music Centre. ![]()
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