Dr Kamalakshi Omanakutty

Kamalakshi Omanakutty is a music professor, academician, and Carnatic vocalist. She did a doctorate in Kathakali. She is currently a professor and the head of the University of Kerala's Department of Music. Sangeetha Bharathi, a private organization, is also chaired by her. K. Omanakutty is a senior faculty member of the Pankaja Kasthuri Ayurvedic Medical College's Music Therapy Department in Kattakada, Thiruvananthapuram. She is also the founder, chairman, and secretary of Sangeeta Bharati, a Thiruvananthapuram-based organization. K. S. Chithra, B. Arundhathi, K. S. Harisankar, Manjari, and K. S. Resmi are her disciples. M. G. Radhakrishnan, her older brother, was a music director in the Malayalam film industry, and M. G. Sreekumar, her younger brother, is a playback singer.

K. Omanakutty was born in the year 1943 in Changanassery. She was born into a musical household. Malabar Gopalan Nair, her father, was a harmonium player and Carnatic musician who often performed on stage throughout South India. Kamalakshi Amma, her mother, was also a Carnatic musician.  Her spouse, M. P. Gopinathan Nair, was an All India Radio chief engineer. Kamala Lekshmi, her only daughter, and her son-in-law, K. S. Sreekumar, are also musicians. K. S. Harisankar, a playback vocalist, and K. S. Ravisankar, a violinist, are Omanakutty's grandsons. The septuagenarian routinely participated in music concerts in different parts of the country while working as a senior music faculty member at Government College for Women.

Omanakutty composed something new while working on composer-musician king Swathi Thirunal's concerts. She diligently evaluated his outcomes and arranged them to make them accessible to a modern audience with the help of her disciples.  In 1963, she received her bachelor's degree in Zoology from a Kerala University-affiliated degree college. She enrolled in the Thiruvananthapuram-based Music Academy to pursue a Gana Praveena course due to her interest in Music. Omanakutty Amma began working as a Lecturer in the Music Department of Government Maharaja's College for Women in Thiruvananthapuram after successfully finishing the music degree offered by that organization. She completed her part-time degree in Music while working in the college's Music department. Omanakutty became a Second Grade Professor in the same department of the college after successfully finishing the degree course in Music. She devoted herself to teaching students in the department for the next six years in this position.

Omanakutty was promoted to First Grade Professor of Music in the same department to appreciate her excellent academic and musical contributions. During this time, several well-known artists of today enrolled in the course and graduated with a degree in Music from the department. She completed her post-graduate and Ph.D. studies in the subject of Music at the same university. Omanakutty has 37 years of expertise as a music lecturer and professor. Professor and Head of Department of Music [HOD] in the University of Kerala's Department of Music, she retired in 2003. She was the first female professor at the University of Kerala's Department of Music.