NEW DELHI: Epoch-making South Indian composer Ilayaraja is among nine artistes from the field of music who will receive the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 2012, while Grammy Award-winning percussionist TH Vinayakram and veteran playwright Ratan Thiyam are among three personalities chosen for the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowship.
The Akademi has selected 36 persons from the fields of music, dance, theatre and puppetry for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2012.
Ilayaraja – who has excelled in giving music in films – has been awarded for creative and experimental music. The other eight eminent artistes from the field of music are: Rajashekhar Mansur and Ajay Pohankar for Hindustani vocal music; Sabir Khan (tabla) and Bahauddin Dagar (rudra veena) for Hindustani instrumental music; O S Thyagarajan for Carnatic vocal music, Mysore M. Nagaraja (violin) and KV Prasad (mridangam) for Carnatic instrumental music and Bhai Balbir Singh Ragi (Gurbani) for other major traditions of music have been selected for the award.
N Rajam, violinist who performs Hindustani classical music, T. H. Vinayakram whois a Grammy award winning Ghatam player, and theatre personality Ratan Thiyam (a former director of the National School of Drama) have been selected for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships.
The Fellowship of the Akademi is restricted to a very limited number at a given time. At present, there are only 40 such Fellows. The honour of Akademi Fellow carries a cash award of Rs. 300,000, the while Akademi Awards carry Rs. 100,000, besides Tamrapatra and Angavastram.
Jwala Prasad gets the Akademi award for music for dance while Murari Roychoudhury gets it for theatre music, and Goru Channabasappa receives it for folk music (Karnataka).