Percussionist, singer, and composer Charu Hariharan, who recently mesmerised the audience at the Mahindra Percussionist Festival, gets candid with
The Pioneer, sharing about her formative years, performing at the festival, and more.
The Pioneer, sharing about her formative years, performing at the festival, and more.
Tejal Sinha
Charu Hariharan is a percussionist, singer, and composer with a musical background. Born in 1989 in Kerala, she began learning South Indian classical music from her grandfather, Sri. Bhagavatheeswara Iyer, and then from her mother, Dr. B. Arundhathi, a well-known vocalist. She began learning ‘Mridangam’ under her master, Sri. Mannarkoil J. Balaji, at the age of ten. She was the first woman to earn the CCRT Mridangam scholarship and began performing in concerts at the age of fourteen.
Hailing from a family with a musical background, where her mother was also a professional singer and her father was an amateur musician, she was always exposed to music from a very young age.
“I’m a composer and was brought to composing music by Raja sir,” recalls Raamam Raaghavam singer. “My father made me listen to Raja sir a lot, but I think it really got into me when I started listening to Rahman sir. That was when I was six or seven when I started listening to him. My biggest passion was ignited as I listened to AR Rahman sir. I worked with a music director, M. Jayachandran, a national award winner from the Malayalam industry. He was also a very important person in helping me compose and inspiring me to compose music. I owe that to these two people, and for independent music, initially, Sivamani sir, I listened to MahaLeela when I was young, and the biggest inspiration I would always say was Trilogurthu Ji. I am a big fan of his work, and he is always my inspiration.”
Recently, the Mahindra Percussion Festival witnessed the Charu Hariharan Quartet blending Kerala and Karnataka percussion with tribal music. It was followed by TWO SUMM by Viveick Rajagopal and Anantha R. Krishnan. Vikku Vinayakram’s Ghatam Symphony and Swarathma Percussive Experience highlighted South Indian percussion’s legacy. “It was indeed an honour to perform at the Mahindra Percussion Festival. The incredible line-up for the first and this year intimidated me. They gave us this opportunity to put out an act like this to curate an act for the festival in such a way that we were able to work around creating new music and content. In fact, the musicians who were featured in the act were Korikodnadal Kotam and the Jain Kurbas. They never worked on an external arrangement for a performance, and this is the first time in their lifetime that they are actually working around it.”
She further shared, “It’s imperative that something like this happens so that people can actually experience the contribution of rhythm and percussion music. I was there for both days, and the receptivity on both days was amazing.”
She was one of six out of 110 participants, and the first Indian, picked for the Ethno on the Road concert series. She was asked to participate in a Youth Music Exchange Project in Sweden in 2012, where she was supervised by Folk Music Maestro Ale Möller. She is a member of the World Folk Ensemble band ‘Varldens Band’, which consists of 14 musicians from six different nations and has toured extensively in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Scotland since 2013. The band has been nominated twice for the World and Folk Music Awards in Sweden. Charu has played with renowned performers such as Ale Moller (SWE), Mats Öberg (SWE), Rene Lacaille and Marco Lacaille (FRA), Pt. Debashish Bhattacharya, Stephen .Devassy, Jonas Knutsson (SWE), M. Jayachandran, Mattannur Sankarankutty, Dr. K. Omanakutty, Karunamoorthy, Balabhaskar, and Santhosh Chandran, to name a few.
Sharing about the series, she says, “Ethno on the Road is a series that happened in its own way. It happens in Ethnos, Sweden. So the participants from Ethnos, there are over 100 people from those 5–6 musicians who will be chosen for this ethnos on the road. I was the first Indian to be chosen, which is a fact, but the concert series happens within Sweden. It travelled all around Sweden with a couple of mentors who travelled with us and guided us and helped us navigate throughout the process. It was amazing because it was my first exposure to seeing many instruments. I have never seen instruments from Palestine, Africa, and many different places, and in fact, I saw many ancient instruments too.”
Before that, she could give her all to music. In this exclusive chat, she also shares that she’s been a postgraduate in psychology and qualified for NET examinations. She was also teaching at Kerala University as a lecturer for a while, and she joined a start-up as an HR head. But she gave up on everything because she knew music was her calling.
Charu Hariharan is a percussionist, singer, and composer with a musical background. Born in 1989 in Kerala, she began learning South Indian classical music from her grandfather, Sri. Bhagavatheeswara Iyer, and then from her mother, Dr. B. Arundhathi, a well-known vocalist. She began learning ‘Mridangam’ under her master, Sri. Mannarkoil J. Balaji, at the age of ten. She was the first woman to earn the CCRT Mridangam scholarship and began performing in concerts at the age of fourteen.
Hailing from a family with a musical background, where her mother was also a professional singer and her father was an amateur musician, she was always exposed to music from a very young age.
“I’m a composer and was brought to composing music by Raja sir,” recalls Raamam Raaghavam singer. “My father made me listen to Raja sir a lot, but I think it really got into me when I started listening to Rahman sir. That was when I was six or seven when I started listening to him. My biggest passion was ignited as I listened to AR Rahman sir. I worked with a music director, M. Jayachandran, a national award winner from the Malayalam industry. He was also a very important person in helping me compose and inspiring me to compose music. I owe that to these two people, and for independent music, initially, Sivamani sir, I listened to MahaLeela when I was young, and the biggest inspiration I would always say was Trilogurthu Ji. I am a big fan of his work, and he is always my inspiration.”
Recently, the Mahindra Percussion Festival witnessed the Charu Hariharan Quartet blending Kerala and Karnataka percussion with tribal music. It was followed by TWO SUMM by Viveick Rajagopal and Anantha R. Krishnan. Vikku Vinayakram’s Ghatam Symphony and Swarathma Percussive Experience highlighted South Indian percussion’s legacy. “It was indeed an honour to perform at the Mahindra Percussion Festival. The incredible line-up for the first and this year intimidated me. They gave us this opportunity to put out an act like this to curate an act for the festival in such a way that we were able to work around creating new music and content. In fact, the musicians who were featured in the act were Korikodnadal Kotam and the Jain Kurbas. They never worked on an external arrangement for a performance, and this is the first time in their lifetime that they are actually working around it.”
She further shared, “It’s imperative that something like this happens so that people can actually experience the contribution of rhythm and percussion music. I was there for both days, and the receptivity on both days was amazing.”
She was one of six out of 110 participants, and the first Indian, picked for the Ethno on the Road concert series. She was asked to participate in a Youth Music Exchange Project in Sweden in 2012, where she was supervised by Folk Music Maestro Ale Möller. She is a member of the World Folk Ensemble band ‘Varldens Band’, which consists of 14 musicians from six different nations and has toured extensively in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Scotland since 2013. The band has been nominated twice for the World and Folk Music Awards in Sweden. Charu has played with renowned performers such as Ale Moller (SWE), Mats Öberg (SWE), Rene Lacaille and Marco Lacaille (FRA), Pt. Debashish Bhattacharya, Stephen .Devassy, Jonas Knutsson (SWE), M. Jayachandran, Mattannur Sankarankutty, Dr. K. Omanakutty, Karunamoorthy, Balabhaskar, and Santhosh Chandran, to name a few.
Sharing about the series, she says, “Ethno on the Road is a series that happened in its own way. It happens in Ethnos, Sweden. So the participants from Ethnos, there are over 100 people from those 5–6 musicians who will be chosen for this ethnos on the road. I was the first Indian to be chosen, which is a fact, but the concert series happens within Sweden. It travelled all around Sweden with a couple of mentors who travelled with us and guided us and helped us navigate throughout the process. It was amazing because it was my first exposure to seeing many instruments. I have never seen instruments from Palestine, Africa, and many different places, and in fact, I saw many ancient instruments too.”
Before that, she could give her all to music. In this exclusive chat, she also shares that she’s been a postgraduate in psychology and qualified for NET examinations. She was also teaching at Kerala University as a lecturer for a while, and she joined a start-up as an HR head. But she gave up on everything because she knew music was her calling.
