Doraiswamy Iyengar

Mysore Venkatesha Doreswamy Iyengar (1920–1997) was a Carnatic musician and one of the greatest exponents of the veena in modern Indian history.

Early life Doreswamy Iyengar was born to a Tamil Brahmin family in Gaddavalli, a village in the Hassan of the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore (in present-day Karnataka, India). His grandfather, Janardhana Iyengar, sang compositions of the Dasa saint-poets, including Purandaradasa. He was a son of Venkatesha Iyengar, a learned vainika and royal musician at the court of the Maharaja of Mysore.

Iyengar started learning the veena from his father at an early age and soon became a disciple of his father's friend Veena Venkatagiriyappa. Doreswamy performed in the presence of the then Maharaja, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV, at the age of 12 for the first time. A few months later, he was appointed the junior vidwan in the palace orchestra. He then passed the examination in advanced theory of Western music conducted by the Trinity College London, and at the age of 16, was appointed as the court musician of Mysore, the youngest to win the honour. Iyengar, who was never interested in studies, managed to secure a Bachelor of Arts degree from Maharaja's College, Mysore, with the help of his friend, R. K. Narayan. He was married at the age of 12 to Sharadamma.

Career Iyengar gave his first public performance in 1943 at the Bangalore Gayana Samaja. He served as the Producer with the All India Radio (AIR) in Bangalore starting 1955. He was reluctant to carry on considering the bureaucratic and organisational demands of the post, and that he perform for the AIR at need, alongside auditioning and selecting musicians for the same. However, he was persuaded to stay by Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, who was a chief producer with the AIR based in Madras (now Chennai), assuring him of flexible hours and fewer burdens of administration. Iyendar put together Gita Bharati for the AIR, Bangalore, which juxtaposed the compositions of Tyagaraja and Muthuswami Dikshitar with the Bengali songs of Rabindranath Tagore, based on their musical structure. These unusual pieces had been composed by Tagore after his trip to southern India in the 1920s that included a visit to the Mysore court. Iyengar later became the first Kannadiga and vanika to perform for AIR's national programme. He was against amplification as he felt that it robbed the music of its nuances and often distorted the tone. the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1983, the Sangeetha Kalanidhi of the Madras Music Academy in 1984, the Sangeetha Kalasikhamani of the Indian Fine Arts Society in 1994, the Sangeetha Kalarathna of the Bangalore Gayanasamaja, and the Chowdiah National Memorial Award.