M. S. Subbulakshmi

1974 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Public Service from India. Conservative Indians considers Srimati M. S. Subbulakshmi as the leading exponent of classical and semi-classical songs in the Karnataka tradition of South India. They and ordinary people alike found in the heart-rending melody and sweetness of her Hindu hymns a deep, pure and abstract emotional appeal. The way she sang, her devotion, her tone, her pitch, her perfect pronunciation was incomparable and flawless. Subbulakshmi was introduced to Carnatic music at a very young age. Her first recording was released when she was only 10 years old. She gave her first public performance during the Mahamaham festival at Kumbakonam at age sixteen. She began her Carnatic classical music training under her mother and then Hindustani classical training under Pandit Narayan Rao Vyas. By the age of 17, Subbulakshmi was giving concerts on her own, including major performances at the Madras Music Academy, a prestigious center for the study and promotion of Carnatic music. Performance in Carnatic music concerts, was until then, a domain, traditionally reserved for men. She performed a vast variety of devotional musical forms in different languages including Tamil, Kannada, Sanskrit, Panjabi, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi.

She was the first musician ever to be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest award given to any civilian. She performed more than 200 charity concerts and raised more than one million U.S. dollars donated to foundations for the poor, hospitals, orphanages, schools, and music and journalism institutes. She also donated many of the royalties on several best sold records to many charity organizations.