Kumar Karthigesu

The Training....

It was perhaps destined that Kumar was to choose music as his career and ultimate objective in his life. Born to keen music enthusiast parents Prof. Dr. R. Karthigesu and Puvaneswari, Kumar began his music education by learning carnatic vocal, mridangam and violin from the early age of six with the blessings and continual encouragement of his spiritual guru, Swami Shantanand Saraswathi.

In 1983, while staying in Leicester, United Kingdom, Kumar received his first taste of learning the sitar under the tutelage of Pandit Dharambir Singh, a disciple of the world renowned Ustad Vilayat Khan.

Back in Malaysia in 1986, Kumar briefly took sitar lessons from Shri Orme Maheswaran, a disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar.

It was in 1991 that fate brought him to meet Ustad Usman Khan in Malaysia, and Kumar set out shortly after to Pune, India, to stay and train intensively under the Guru's guidance, forming an intimate guru – sishya relationship with Usmanji, which continues until this day. Alongside his musical pursuit, Kumar also graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) at the University of Pune in 1997.

In 1998, Kumar pursued a Masters degree in Performing Arts at the Middlesex University, London, which he completed in 2001. He then returned in Malaysia and kick-started the sitar department at The Temple of Fine Arts in Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Singapore, serving as the sitar teacher in all 3 centres. In 2008, Kumar was appointed as Director of the Music Department of TFA, which he served until June 2023.

He also joined the University of Malaya as a part time lecturer of Indian Music in 2002 till 2008, and further served as a sitar and music teacher in the National Arts and Heritage Academy (ASWARA) from 2006 to 2015, where he has developed music syllabi and curriculum for both degree and diploma students.

Kumar also served as a founding principal sitar artist for the Malaysian Traditional Orchestra (Orkestra Tradisional Malaysia), and a frequent guest artiste for the RTM Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Malaysia.

The Concerts...

Kumar's first sitar concert was in 1984, barely a year after he started learning, at Soar Valley, his secondary school in Leicester, UK. He quickly went on to discover many performing opportunities among various organisations in the UK, and performed more than 40 times during these formative years, including a performance at the highly prestigious Brent Music Festival in London in 1986.

In 1988, Kumar had the rare opportunity of performing a solo item at the Opening Ceremony of the World Tamil Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

While intensively training under Usmanji in Pune, India, Kumar performed extensively in India from 1992 onwards. A particularly memorable concert was at the prestigious Pune Festival in 1996.

During his three-year period in the United Kingdom from 1998 to 2001, Kumar performed many concerts in various parts of England, Glasgow (Scotland), Cardiff (Wales), and in Gent, Belgium. Kumar co-composed and performed the music score for ‘Cast in Stone’, a production by Mavin Khoo and Christopher Bannerman, and subsequently performed live when it was staged at the South Bank Centre, UK in the year 2000.

Since making Kuala Lumpur his base in 2001, Kumar’s performing career took a dramatic leap, and he firmly established himself as a known personality in Indian music in the South-East Asian region. He has performed extensively throughout Malaysia and Singapore, performing solo as well as performing in orchestral and fusion concerts.

As a childhood member of The Temple of Fine Arts, Kumar has been a constant feature in most of TFA's performances and presentations. in 2002, along with fellow musicians Jyotsna Nithyanandan and Prakash Kandasamy, Kumar co composed and co arranged Tryam, an 40- member Indian based orchestra by The Temple of Fine Arts International, which then premiered in Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Chennai and Hyderabad, India.

In 2005, Kumar co directed ‘inside out’, an exciting production of contemporary dance and music, with fellow artists Jyotsna Nithyanandan, Prakash Kandasamy and Umesh Shetty under their own label, Inner Space Performing Arts.

In 2008, Kumar joined a number of fellow musicians to form AkashA, a fusion music outfit which rapidly gained iconic status. AkashA has since performed more than 300 concerts at festivals globally. Kumar remains as the lead sitar player in AkashA, and currently manages the band.

He continues to form new relationships and music partnerships with many leading music practitioners of different genres, always discovering new ground and exploring his musical creativity. As Director of Music of TFA Malaysia, Kumar produced several large scaled festivals and music performances, notably the annual Tyagaraja-Tansen Festival and the Shantanand Festival of Arts, both of which have hosted many top rated artistes from India, and also included TFA's mega dance dramas and music productions.

Already a recognized sitar performer and composer by the government and the artistic sector in Malaysia, Kumar continues to grow as a sitar artist, composer, arranger, producer and teacher. His performance record continues to expand, and he frequently travels overseas to perform internationally. He has had performances in Australia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, several cities in India, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Korea, South Africa, Japan, Turkey, UK, Europe and the USA.

Recordings...

One of the earliest full music scores which Kumar was involved in was Odissi Odyssey - the story of Ashoka, a dance-drama by TFA in the Odissi dance form, in 1993, under the musical directorship of Pandit Chandrakant Kapileshwari. He then went on to being the principal sitar player for the soundtrack of The Taj Mahal another dance-drama by TFA International in 1995, which has since toured and performed in Malaysia, Singapore, India and Sri Lanka.

His composition and arrangement skills came into bloom in 2002, when Kumar co-composed and co-arranged the music soundtracks for two highly successful dance-dramas - The Butterfly Lovers and The Legend of Mahsuri. The former toured Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru, Singapore, Australia, Sri Lanka and India, while ‘the Legend of Mahsuri’, produced under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism of Malaysia, premiered at the Istana Budaya (National Theatre), Kuala Lumpur, and subsequently was performed in Langkawi.

Kumar has also recorded two tracks in popular Malaysian R&B singer Reshmonu’s album ‘Monumental’, released in 2003.

in 2007, Kumar produced and released his full-length solo classical album, Taar Sitara, with fellow tabla player Vick Ramakrishnan.

His journey with AkashA has yielded two best-selling world music albums to date, Into...AkashA and Karakoram Highway, both of which are available at all major retail and online stores. A solo track, Navikarana, was released in 2021, and a third full-length AkashA album is on its way.

The Awards...

Kumar first won the Musician of the Year award in 1985 by the London Carnatic Music Circle, as well as National Musician of the Year award organized by the Brent Competition UK,He also had several radio and television recordings during this stint in the UK.

In 2005, his company, Inner Space Performing Arts' production of inside out went on to win a whopping 8 awards at the BOH Cameronian Arts Awards in 2006, including for Best Music Direction and Best Group Performance.

In Feb 2009, Kumar received the Anugerah Seni Negara (Karyawan Seni) by the Government of Malaysia, for his excellence in the Arts and service to the nation. More recently, in 2012, Kumar was given the title of Tokoh Warisan Negara, or National Living Heritage, by the Heritage Department, Government of Malaysia.

In 2015, he won the Best Music Composition award at the BOH Cameronian Arts Awards for his composition, “The Jog’s on you!”, and in 2019, Kumar was given a ‘Golden Shawl ceremony’ and awarded with the title Nada Amrutha Sittar by Sangeethalayam Malaysia. He also has multiple other awards and citations from other NGO’s and Arts groups in Malaysia.