The Veena: Instrument of Devotion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation feature)

Kalpakam teacher is featured in this episode of 'Musical Flavours of the sub-continent' available on ABC.net.au.

Based on filming by Robert Iolini at her Chennai home in 2008, the feature contains images, audio and video.

"The Hindu goddess Saraswati, symbolic of learning, wisdom and the arts, is often depicted playing the South Indian veena, an instrument of the lute family. Kalpakam Swaminathan, who has been playing the veena for eighty years, shows how the revered instrument's lyrical capabilities and sacred associations find profound expression in the Carnatic tradition of Indian classical music.

In Chennai, the Carnatic music capital of India, we also meet one of Kalpakam Swaminathan's students David Reck, who has been travelling to Chennai to study the veena since the 1960s. Mali Umayalpuram, a master of the mridangam, the double-headed drum of Carnatic music, speaks of the devotional nature of music performance and the Australian saxophonist Sandy Evans tells of the revelations that await a jazz player who decides to study Carnatic music."

Go to: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/intothemusic/features/musicalflavoursofthesubcontinent/veena/