Kunnakudi also believed that his success as a solo violinist was due to the blessings and unlimited encouragement he received from all the maestros for whom he had played the violin.
But he was not happy merely being an accompanying violinist all the time. "I wanted to bring the violin to the centrestage and I can proudly say that I have popularised violin as a solo instrument," he said.
Kunnakudi also earned criticism from purists for including film music in his kacheris . He was scoffed at and criticised but that did not deter him for going ahead with it. "I want to have even the common man as my rasika. That is why I have light songs at the fag end of my kacheris. After all, music is music."
The same logic prompted him to start composing music for films, and he had worked on as many as 50 films. His foray into the film industry began with A P Nagarajan's Vaa Raja Vaa (1969).
His songs for the film Raja Raja Chozhan (1973) are still talked about. In the film Deivam, he made all his playback singers, including Madurai Somu, make an on-screen appearance.
After Semmangudi's tenure, it was Kunnakudi who took charge of the Thiruvayyaru Thyagaraja music festival. "Before the commencement of the festival every year, I used to go and pay pranamam to him. He used to tell me, 'you will achieve greatness for what you are doing to the festival'. My Guru was proved right."
I had met the maestro during Chennai's Margazhi music festival, and naturally our conversation moved to the festival.
He reminisced, "I still remember my first kacheri during the Margazhi Utsavam. It was 1972, and the venue was the Tamil Isai Sangham. What a knowledgeable crowd it was! The concert started at 9.30 pm and went on for a very long time."
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