Kadri Gopalnath Biography 
Kadri Gopalnath is a pioneer of Carnatic music on the saxophone. He was born in Mangalore in 1949. He has also performed for many film compositions, the most notable one being Tamil movie – Duet composed by A. R. Rahman. The chartbuster songs of the movie were composed by Rahman on raga Kalyanavasantam. He has also collaborated with many international artists, the most notable one being American saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa, released in 2008 as ‘Kinsmen’. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2004. He received an honorary doctorate from Bangalore University in 2004. Most recently he received Sangeetha Kalasikhamani award for the year 2013. Tamil Nadu government has honoured him with the prestigious "Kalaimamani award” for his overall contributions to music.
Kadri Gopalnath was born in 1949 to a nadaswaram vidwan, Thaniappa. Once in his younger days, he happened to watch someone playing saxophone at Mysore palace and he got attracted to it. It took long 20 years to master this instrument and now he is one of the prominent Indian artists who play Carnatic music in saxophone. He learnt saxophone under Gopalkrishna Iyer of Kalaniketana. He made certain modifications to the conventional alto saxophone to make it easy for carnatic music. He has been honoured with the title - "Saxophone Chakravarthy".
He first performed live for Chembai Memorial Trust. In 1980 Bombay Jazz Festival his fusion music with jazz musician John Handy proved to be the turning point of his career. Later he regularly appeared in many international music concerts. He is the first Carnatic musician to be invited in the BBC Promenade concert in 1994, in the Royal Albert Hall at London.
Published: N/A
Updated: July 09, 2014
