Karuna Murthy is a young exponent of the tavil working as a professor at the Vaikkom Kshetra Kala Peetom, the only institute dedicated for temple-based performing arts in India.
He took the first step at the age of ten when he started learning tavil from Narayana Panicker of Haripad, a temple-town in Alleppey district of Kerala.
After three years of initial learning, Murthy headed for Tamil Nadu to learn from some of the grand masters of tavil percussion.
He started his higher lessons with Tanjavur Govindaraj and later moved to Tiruvidaimarudur Venkatesh to fine-tune the art of playing this complicated instrument.
With a genuine appetite for more, Murthy was accepted by maestro Valayappatti Subramaniam who helped him learn the advanced lessons in the art of tavil playing. Already into the concert circuit in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the young man was later under the tutorship of another maestro Mannarcudi Vasudevan with whom he continues to play to this day.
From playing with Carnatic Clarinet maestro AKC Natarajan, Nadawara Vidwans Seturaman Ponnuswamy and Tiruvizha Jaishankar, and Vettikkavala Shashikumar, Karuna Murthy's shift to a more global genre of music was quite natural.
He met his first overseas student, Christian Auer from Germany, in 1996 during a concert in Varkala, Kerala. Christian's appettite for learning tavil turned their relationship into one that is more than that of a student and a teacher. In 1999 Christian invited Murthy to Germany thus providing the first overseas break for the young exponent who had by then played with several maestros in India.
Having stepped into World Music, Murthy played in Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Switzerland and Britain with such luminaries of Jazz drumming as Steve Smith, Effrain Toro, Dave Weckl, Hakim Ludin, Jeff Hamilton, Richie Gajate Garcia, Chad Wackerman, Marco Minneman, Ralf Gukdze, Brad Dutz, besides many other well-known names, over the past few years.
Besides playing with them, Karuna Murthy conducted several workshops for drummers and percussionists of various kinds while in Europe. He even played for exponents of Flamenco, the breathtaking Latin American music and dance.
He played with world music combo Embryo and features in their live recordings. Not limiting his forays into other genres of music to the overseas soil, the young tavil player organized a few widely-televised concerts in Kerala with Saxophone player Roland Sheiffer, Germany-based Hakim Ludin, Switzerland-based tabla professor Jatinder Thakur, chenda (another south Indian percussion) maestro Mattannur Sankarankutty, Kanjira player Selva Ganesh among others.
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Apart from playing for various international albums he had recently played for the songs of Tamil Block Buster Film of Kamahasan "Veyttaadu Villayaadu"-Music scored by Haris Jayaraj.
He also played for the latest Jayaram Starrer Malayalam Film "Kanaga Simhasanam" - Music by M.Jayachandran.
The latest addition being his performance for the first Instrumental DVD with Veena Exponent Rajhesh Vaidhya produced by Moser Baer.
Played along with Kanayakaumar on Violin, Mamabalam M.K.S.Siva on Nadaswarm, Padri Satheeshkumar on Mridhangam, Mudikondan S.Ramesh on Veena and Srisundarkumar on Ganjira for the album "Vaadhya Lahari".
Apart from his Indian students, Karuna Murthy teaches several Europeans who got hooked to the mesmerising power of tavil that he played during his several shows in Europe. Besides Christian, he also teaches Austrian drummer Sven Kienesberger among others.