Garimella Subramaniam in on M. Balamuralikrishna

“An enduring legacy of Balamuralikrishna is the wider accessibility of classical kirtanas to the public. Many of his contemporaries tend to treat classical and popular music as watertight compartments.”

“The real issue underlying these controversies appears to have been a challenge to his philosophy of music; nay, that of the Trinity. Balamuralikrishna has long held that Carnatic music today is an entity outside the strictly religious domain. He remarked once that those who believed that concert singing denigrated the essence of Carnatic music should confine their singing to puja rooms.”