Pichu Sambamoorthi Biography 
Pichu Sambamoorthi was an Indian musicologist from Madras Presidency who lived in the 20th century. He has also authored several books on music. For his overall contributions towards the field of Indian art and music, government of India honoured him with Padma Bhushan in 1971 and Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1963. Great composers, A Dictionary of South Indian Music and Musicians, Laya Vadyas: Time-Keeping Instruments, Sruthi Vadyas (Drones) and South Indian Music are some of the books he authored on the subject of music. He passed away in 1973.
Pichu Sambamoorthi was born in Bitragunta, Madras Presidency on 14 February 1901. His birthplace now belongs to Guntur district, Andra Pradesh. He trained in vocals and string instrument violin during his younger days. Pichu got opportunity to train under some of the renowned gurus of pre-independent era like Boddu Krishniah, M. Doraiswami Iyer, S. A. Ramaswami Iyer and Krishnaswami Bhagavatar.
In 1928 he joined as faculty of music at Queen Mary's College. Three years later he moved to Germany to study musicology on a grant from Deutsche Akademie. He also studied from Staatliche Akademie der Tonkunst simultaneously before he returned back to India. He joined Madras University as a lecturer and continued there till 1961 for nearly three decades. In 1961 he became the director of Sangita Vadyalaya, Chennai. Sambamoorthi has been associated with several universities in India later, where he taught music.
After retirement he concentrated most on writings and research works and published over 50 books. South Indian Music in 6 volumes is one of his major contributions to Indian music. In 1972 he received Sangeetha Kalanidhi award given by the Madras Music Academy. Padma Bhushan and Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship are other major honours.
Published: January 28, 2019
Updated: January 28, 2019
