Sangeetha Acharya Thiruvaiyaru S R Krishnan
Krishnan carries the name of Thiruvaiyaru— the sacred village in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur district where Saint Tyagaraja, one of the Trinity of Carnatic music, lived for over eighty years and composed thousands of devotional kritis. Situated on the banks of the Kaveri at the confluence of five rivers, Thiruvaiyaru is the site of the annual Tyagaraja Aradhana, the largest gathering of Carnatic musicians in the world. To bear this village’s name is to carry a lineage inseparable from the tradition itself.
Srinivasa Raghava Krishnan is a Vedic scholar, Vakgeyakara, poet, lyricist, composer, journalist, spiritual writer, novelist, operatic playwright, and until recently a banker and international fiduciary for six decades.
Krishnan started training in Karnataka Sangeetam very young, under the tutelage of his father Gana-BhushanamBrahmasri Kumaramangalam Srinivasa-Raghavan, a Vakgeyakara of the 20th century (musician-composer with ankitam or mudra, ‘RagaSri’). Their father composed over 300 kritis with the ankitam ‘RagaSri,’ encouraged by contemporaries such as GN Balasubramaniam, Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Adiseshayya, Aandavan Pichai, and Tiruppugazh Mani. His compositions on Lord Muruga and Guruvayurappan were performed by his children — Krishnan and his sister Bhooma Narayanan — at the Murugan Padi Utsavam during 1956–1960, and a song composed by Srinivasa-Raghavan was offered at the feet of Kanchi Paramacharya Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati in 1957. Krishnan also learned under other stalwarts who were contemporaries of his father — legendary musicians such as Sangeeta Kalanidhi Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Madurai Mani Iyer, and GN Balasubramaniam.
Krishnan has been performing since 1955 and has given numerous concerts in prestigious venues in India, Europe, Far East Asia, Great Britain, and the United States, accompanied by acclaimed instrumental musicians many of whom have been legends in the world of Karnataka Sangeetam (Carnatic Music).
Krishnan was awarded the prestigious title of ‘Sangeeta Acharya’ in 2008 by the Indian Fine Arts Academy, United States of America, and also became the honoree of the Lifetime Achievement Awardfor his 60-year contribution to the world of both systems of Indian Music. He continues to serve IFAASD as Chief Guest at their annual and youth festivals, and has contributed scholarly articles to their festival souvenirs every year since 2011 — a sustained intellectual contribution spanning more than fifteen years.
The Legacy
Krishnan is a celebrated exponent of Nama Sankeertanam & Hari-Katha, two of the hoary musical and spiritual traditions of India, which have been handed down to eminent disciples by great saints over the last ten centuries to the present day purveyors of this exalted tradition.
Hailing from a family of Bhagavatas, Krishnan has performed this ancient and divine form of musical presentation over six decades in hundreds of venues in four continents. His Gurus in this tradition include his father Brahmasri Kumaramangalam Srinivasa-Raghavan, Brahmasri Nathamuni Narayana Iyengar, Bhagavata-Siromani Narayana Sastri, and Swami-Haridoss-Giri (popularly known as Guruji), a legendary name in this tradition with whom Krishnan had performed numerous Sankeertanams and “divya-dampati-vivahams” since 1959.
The Guru Parampara
Swami Haridoss Giri — affectionately known as Guruji — was born in Thennangur, Tamil Nadu, and became the chief disciple of the revered Swami Gnanananda Giri at Thapovanam near Thiruvannamalai. Adept in Sri Vidya worship and Hatha Yoga, Guruji was instrumental in spreading Dakshina Sampradaya Namasankeertanamthroughout India and across the world. He established the Panduranga Temple dedicated to Vitthala in Thennangur and traveled widely — to Singapore, Malaysia, and beyond — singing bhajans and giving discourses on the Bhagavatham, Bhagavad Gita, and Ramayana.
Krishnan’s association with Guruji, beginning in 1959, placed him in a direct spiritual lineage stretching from Gnanananda Giri through Haridoss Giri to the present. When Guruji took Jalasamadhi — a conscious, meditative departure — in the Alaknanda river at Koteswar in the Himalayas on September 4, 1994, the tradition he had carried forward continued through disciples like Krishnan.
Sitayascharitam Mahat
Krishnan’s earliest opera and musical compilation on Sri Ramayanam, titled “Sitayascaritam Mahat”, was set to musical score by Sangeeta Kalanidhi Mudikondan Venkatarama Iyer and Padma Bhushan Musiri Subrahmanya Iyer, and choreographed by Padma Bhushan Dr. V. Raghavan. The work was acclaimed widely and honored by Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer.
In December 2016, the opera was revived and staged at the Lohman Theatre, Foothill College, Los Altos, in the San Francisco Bay Area — supported by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. The production retold the Ramayana through the lens of its female characters: the bewildered Kaikeyi, the wretched Manthara, the vile Shurpanaka, the sagacious Trijata, and Sita, the epitome of virtue. Krishnan’s daughter Priya Krishnan Parameswaran was instrumental in co-producing the staging.
Theater and Composition
A thespian since his collegiate years, Krishnan was invited to the prestigious National Festivals in Ujjain to play leading roles in many of Mahakavi Kalidasa’s famed literary works. He has acted and directed a number of plays in several Indian languages, and his theatrical expositions have won acclaim in the Indian news media and awards from the internationally acclaimed Educational Trust, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
Krishnan has written, composed, and set to music another traditional opera on the Lord of Sabarimala and has to his credit numerous music compositions in several languages including Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Hindi. His music performances on the Musical Saints of India series have been popular, and Krishnan has performed globally for numerous fundraisers for charitable causes, institutions, and divine missions.
He has hundreds of live recordings now available free online across two dedicated YouTube channels — Ragasri and GuruBhakti. Both channels are co-contributed by Krishnan and his brother Ragasri S. Lakshminarasimhan, who manages and curates the digital archive from India. The Ragasri channel is named in tribute to their father’s compositional mudra. Among the most significant bodies of work on these channels is the complete Narayaneeyamseries — a musical rendition of all the Dasakams of Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri’s 1034-verse devotional poem summarizing the Srimad Bhagavatam, each set to a specific Carnatic raga.
A Disciple of Kanchi Paramacharya
A disciple of His Holiness Jagadguru Kanchi Paramacharya (68th Pontiff of the Adi Shankara Order), Krishnan continued training in the Vedas and scriptures in Sanskrit College, Madras, as part of a program conducted under the auspices of Paramacharya.
Krishnan has been teaching Karnataka Sangeetam for more than 50 years in four continents and has a number of disciples in India, Europe, England, and in the United States, where he settled with his family in the 1980s.
The Krishnan Sisters
Krishnan’s prime disciples — Priya Krishnan Parameswaran, Harini Krishnan Vikas, and Subhapriya Krishnan Srivatsan — are acclaimed Carnatic musicians settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Known as the ‘Krishnan Sisters’ in Europe and the United States, and the ‘California Sisters’ in India, the three began touring internationally as children in 1979.
Harini received advanced training under the eminent musicologist Dr. S. Ramanathan. Subhapriya, who performs in both Carnatic and Hindustani styles, currently serves as President of LOTUS, a Bay Area Carnatic music organization. She is married to Hemmige Srivatsan, a renowned vocalist and violinist. The tradition now extends to a fourth generation through all three sisters’ children: Priya’s children Kaanchana and Shankara; Harini’s daughters Janani and Abhaya Krishnan-Jha; and Subhapriya’s sons Raama, Keshavan, and Hari Srivatsan — a four-generation musical lineage stretching from Gana-Bhushanam Kumaramangalam Srinivasa-Raghavan through Krishnan, through the Sisters, to their children.
Ragasri S. Lakshminarasimhan
Krishnan’s younger brother Ragasri S. Lakshminarasimhan— affectionately known in the family as Chinga — grew up in the same musical household under their father Gana-BhushanamBrahmasri Kumaramangalam Srinivasa-Raghavan. Like Krishnan, Lakshminarasimhan absorbed from childhood their father’s over 300 kritis, the family’s Sankeertana practice, and the devotional traditions of the Bhagavata lineage. He carries the prefix ‘Ragasri’ — their father’s compositional mudra — as part of his name, a direct marker of this inheritance.
Based in India, Lakshminarasimhan is the co-contributor to the Ragasri and GuruBhakti YouTube channels, where he manages and curates the digital archive of hundreds of live recordings. He also maintains the Ragasri blog, where he writes extensively in Tamil on Hindu philosophy, the Ramayana, the Bhagavatam, and the Narayaneeyam — preserving and sharing their father’s compositions and the family’s musical heritage for a new generation.
Lakshminarasimhan has translated the Sanskrit shlokas of all 100 Dasakams of the Narayaneeyam into Tamil and composed songs based on them. He participates in the family’s Nama Sankeertanam alongside his siblings, and his work in documenting and digitally disseminating their father’s legacy has been indispensable in ensuring that the tradition reaches audiences far beyond its original circle.
The Siblings
Krishnan’s sisters, Smt. Bhooma-Narayanan and Smt. Ramamani Ranganathan, also continue the family’s Sankeertana tradition in India. Smt. Ramamani Ranganathan conducts daily Paduka Sahasra Parayanam in Hyderabad, and Smt. Bhooma-Narayanan carries forward the Nama Sankeertanam practice originally led by their guru Poojyasri Nathamuni Narayana Iyengar — a tradition now sustained for over 50 years.
Radha Krishnan
Krishnan’s wife Radha, a retired banker from the Reserve Bank of India, has been a musicologist. In 1966 — at a time when women mountaineers in India were exceptionally rare — she climbed one of the peaks of the Himalayas under training from Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the record-holding pioneer who had conquered the summit of Mt. Everest just thirteen years earlier with Edmund Hillary. She was awarded the Silver Axe by the Chief of Army Staff in 1966 for her feat as a pioneering woman mountaineer.
Krishnan and Radha, with their daughters (Priya, Harini, and Subhapriya — the Krishnan Sisters, the celebrated musicians), are involved in several philanthropic activities. Krishnan’s music performances have been fundraisers for charities and philanthropy, and their recordings supplement the Krishnans’ support to various charities, homes for the mentally and physically challenged, and hospitals for the underprivileged.
Beyond Music
A gold medalist from the renowned University of Madras, India, Krishnan had the distinction of becoming a Fellow of the Royal Chartered Institute of Bankers (London) and a Fellow of the Institute of Financial Accountants (London) when he was in his early thirties.
Krishnan has been a banker since 1965 and has held senior executive positions with several international banks in Asia, Europe, Great Britain, and the United States, and has widely traveled the globe since 1978. He is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of two well-known United States fiduciary and consulting corporations, which serve as court-appointed fiduciaries at the nomination of several US federal and state agencies, governmental regulators, banks, and some foreign governments.
Krishnan currently serves as the Special Deputy Commissioner of the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.
The Written Word
Beyond music and banking, Krishnan is a prolific writer. He has worked as a journalist and spiritual writer, and is the author of novels and operatic scripts. His scholarly articles — exploring the lives of musical saints, the philosophical traditions of Bhakti, and the history of Carnatic music — have been published annually in the Indian Fine Arts Academy festival souvenirs since 2011, forming a body of work that spans subjects from Saint Tyagaraja and Narayana Teertha to the Mahabharata and the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi.
Key Dates
- 1955 — First public performance
- 1959— Begins performing with Swami Haridoss Giri (Guruji)
- 1965 — Begins banking career
- 1979— European tour with daughters, the Krishnan Sisters
- 1980s— Settles in the United States with family
- 2008— Awarded ‘Sangeeta Acharya’ by Indian Fine Arts Academy, USA
- 2011–present— Annual scholarly articles for IFAASD festival souvenirs
- 2016 — Sitayascharitam Mahat staged at Foothill College, Bay Area
- 2023— Chief Guest, IFAASD North American Youth Festival