Pursuing excellence in pedagogy and performance – Padma Sugavanam

My childhood memories of her as my senior at St Johns English School and then at Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School are vivid. She was a brilliant student who won every academic proficiency prize there was, year after year. She was also known for her outstanding singing, never failing to bring laurels to the school at inter-school competitions. I followed her career path with interest, until she all but disappeared from the Chennai music scene — to become a lecturer of music in Tirupati. It has now been about a year since she made a comeback, and a very successful one at that. ‘The response has been overwhelming’, in her own words. Not surprising, what with her erudition, sense of aesthetics and open-throated singing. Meet Dr Padma Sugavanam, a musician who is just as passionate about music pedagogy as she is about performance.