Profile

Sampagodu S Vighnaraja hails from Sringeri was born on 2nd February 1978 to Smt Nagalakshmi and Sangeetha Vaaridhi Vid Sri D S Suryanarayana Bhat. Vighnaraja is a Carnatic classical Vocalist surprised his parents by singing Kalpana swaras (improvisation) in Mayamalava goula Raaga at the tender age of  3. He started his  early tutelage when he was 5 years old under his Thapasvi father Sri D S Suryanarayana Bhat who belongs to the legendary GNB school of music having learnt from GNB's direct disciples .  And later when he was 14 he had a short stint of 2 years of training from his cousin Vid Sri D N Subrahmanya Bhat, one of his father’s disciples, and again continued his training from his Father himself.

Vighnaraja is gifted with a beautiful voice which can produce brilliant and effortless akaras, bhirkas and soothing gamakas. He has given number of concerts in both vocal and flute in many parts of India and also abroad namely Australia, Singapore , Malaysia , New Zealand and Taiwan and   USA .

He has always been accompanied by the reputed artists namely Sri Mannargudi Eshwaran, sri S Varadarajan, Sri Patri Satish Kumar , Dr Jyothsna Srikanth,  Sri K V Prasad , Kum, Akkarai Subbulakshmi ,Sri Trichy Harikumar , Sri H K Venkatram, Sri Arjun Kumar, Sri Vittal Ramamurthy ,Sri J Vaidyanathan , Sri H K Narasimha murthy, Sri Neyveli Venkatesh, Sri Mysore V Srikanth , Sri C Cheluvaraju , Sri H N Bhaskar , Sri AV Anand , Sri Anooru Anantha Krishna Sharma , Sri Karaikudi Krishna murthy , Smt Sukanya Ramgopal,  Sri Ghatam Karthik   and many others.

Vighnaraja is also a self taught flautist, who was working in The Temple of Fine Arts, Kuala Lumpur as “Head of  Instrument Section” for the past 6 years from 2007 to 2012.

“All India Radio” Graded Artist Vighnaraja has been performing vocal solo concerts all over the world for almost two decades. he has also done Jugalbandhi with Hindusthani vocal and different instruments like Saarangi  slide guitar , Mandolin and fusion work with foreign artists  and workshops for foreign students and artists.

Vighnaraja has been training students from different parts of the world apart from India like UK, USA, Australia, Malaysia, Middle East, and  France and so on. His performances and interviews have been aired on Radio Malaysia and telecasted on the TV channels in India and also in  Malaysia many times.

Awards

*)  BOH Cameronian Arts award for 2009 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for Best Vocal solo performance.

*)  “SHATKAALA   KALAA  GAANA  PRATHIBHA  MANI “  by Shree Rama Centre of  Performing Arts (R)  Bangalore

*) “ARYABHATA INTERNATIONAL  AWARD “  for 2012