Vijay Siva launches new YouTube series

Vijay Siva explores a range of topics in an easy, anecdotal way

Senior musician N. Vijay Siva recently inaugurated a novel video series titled ‘Vande Sangeetam’ on his YouTube channel. The first episode titled ‘Kaveri Saveri’ sees Vijay sitting by the Kapila River, its pristine waters flowing behind him. He talks of the importance of rivers to civilisation and the fact that many prominent Carnatic composers, Tygaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri, hailed from the banks of the Cauvery, and intersperses the narrative with with informative anecdotes. He then sings Dikshitar’s ‘Kari kalabha mukham,’ a song in Saveri, on the Dundi Ganapati deity located on the shores of the Cauvery in Mayiladuthurai. Vijay likes to know the word-by-word meanings of the songs he sings. He does not use any mnemonic aids at concerts. In these videos too, he delivers his content without notes, in easily comprehensible English, moving from anecdote to anecdote, switching effortlessly to singing while strumming the tanpura himself. With some 12 episodes filmed over three consecutive days, a lot of effort must have gone in to present an in-depth account in a free-flowing, viewer-friendly format.