Guruvayur Dorai

Guruvayur Dorai is a renowned musician who is specialized in Mridangam. He was born on 2nd July 1935 in Guruvayur, Kerala. His parents GS KrishnaIyer and Meenakshi named him Vaidyanathan. KrishnaIyer was a priest in Guruvayur and Meenakshi Amma was a homemaker. Dorai has five siblings, 3 sisters and 2 brothers. His brother GK Rajamani is a violinist. Guruvayur Ponnammal, one of his sisters was a singer and another sister is a music teacher in Chennai. At the age of 6, Dorai got his training from Palghat Subbaiyer and EP Narayana Pisharody and then from Palani Subramaniam Pillai. Dorai follows Pudukottai style in playing Mridangam. It is exciting to hear that he started doing concerts with seniors, when he was eight years. As Dorai’s siblings are already into the music field and were Vocalist and Violinist, his father decided to make him learn Mridangam. Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, a great vocalist, was teaching Dorai’s sister Ponnammal. He was impressed by Dorai’s interest in Mridangam and made his Arangettram on the stage with him.

In 1949, Dorai’s sister Ponnammal got an opportunity to enter the Malayalam film industry as a singer. Following this, their father took Ponnammal, Dorai and Rajamani to Madras and stayed there. Dorai met Palani Subramaniam Pillai in 1949 and after Subramaniam Pillai shifted his base to Madras in 1953, Dorai started attending the classes taken by the legend. He stayed with his guru at his residence for nearly 9 years and learned all the techniques in playing Mridangam, especially the Pudukottai style.

Mridanga Nada Manjari is the book about Mridangam penned by Dorai’s mentor, EP Narayana Pisharody. Dorai published the book in the year 2001. Dorai has performed a huge number of concerts throughout the South. He also had a lot of concerts in many foreign nations. Besides sharing the stage space with the veterans in his field, he had also worked with “ K J Yesudas Kattassery Joseph Yesudas shortly called as K J Ye >> Read More... ,” TN Seshagopalan TN Seshagopalan, a popular Carnatic singer, was bo >> Read More... , Shashank Subramanyam Bio coming soon... >> Read More... and many others. In 1990, the Tamilnadu government honored him with the Kalaimamani Award. In 1996, he received Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. In 2002, the Indian Fine Arts Society in Chennai awarded him with Sangeetha Kalasikhamani. In 2011, he was honored with Sangeet Natak Akademi Tagore Ratna Award.