Dr. Girija Seshamamba hails from a family with musical interest but not musical background and born to Sri Late.PothuRaju KutumbaRao and Late. Smt.HemaLatha in Machilipatnam. She started learning at the age of 3 and half. Her Father Late. Sri PothuRaju KutumbaRao took her to Late Smt. Tadepalli Seetha MahaLakshmi garu from Machilipatnam, a Disciple of Late. SriParupalli Ramakrishnayya Pantulu . That’s how She entered in to the Lineage of Sri Parupalli Ramakrishnayya Pantulu. Sri Pantulu was a direct descendant of the sisya parampara of Saint Thyagaraja. May be beacuse of that Lineage she was drawn towards Tyagaraja as base for her thesis. Her first performance was at the age of 7 at Anjaneya temple, Machilipatnam,Andhra pradesh.
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Soon after, Girija began learning with her Guru Smt.Tadepalli Seetha MahaLakshmi garu who added great values of tradition, discipline and ethics in her music and personality through intense teaching and training from a very early age. Her experience with guru was like a mother and child not like student and teacher. Her guru was very affectionate and shaped many 100’s of students in music and dedicated her life to music.she was very much inspired by her guru and always feel gratitude towards her guru for her position in music world. DR.Girija began performing at the age of 7 and won several awards and accolades along her career. DR.Girija was soon one of the youngest artistes in carnatic classical and light music to perform and given lectures in All India Radio at early ages. She also passed certificate course with the guidance of her Guru in very early age. She has been blessed to perform along with her guru accompanying on violin.
Since childhood she gave many performances on stage and people recognized her as a child prodigy.From childhood her father was her role model as he encouraged her in all aspects and with her parents support she continued her music from very early age.During her musical journey she was trained and guided by many gurus like DR.Mythili garu, Smt. P.K.Indrani garu in B.Music and Dr Dwaram Lakshmi garu in M.A., (Music).Though she selected B.Music to bag a degree her passion and interest towards music keep on increasing and then she Completed her M.A., degree in Music as university topper and bagged a gold medal in her career. While pursing her Masters degree her passion for music and bhakti towards sangeetha thrayam increased. Her deep intensity for music lead her to Ph.D., in music and completed her thesis on “Apoorva Ragas Of Thyagaraja’s Compositions” under the guidance of Dr Prapancham Sitaram garu. She learnt few Apoorva ragas from DR. Nookala China Satyanarayana garu. She was trained Annamacharya Sankeerthanas under Sri Garimella Bala Krishna Prasad garu.
She was praised by her gurus stating that the way of presentation of Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi are really inspired and admirable of her workaholic nature and commitment. She obediently says that all the techniques are the prasadam of her gurus, for which she is grateful to all her gurus. During this travel she was motivated and inspired in different aspects in each guru and quickly imbibed in her with those qualities with passion, keen observation and rigorous hard work.
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In this journey of life she got married to Dr.T.Durga Vara Prasad, Senior Manager in Bank of India. Since then with his encouragement she never turned back and achieved many with his support. She gave number of performances, conducted many work shops,has written and composed many songs and taught carnatic music to many. Always she says “It’s because of my gurus and my husband am here now”.
Her eidetic memory, keen observation and enormous hard work made her stand with two world records.
-By presenting Thyagaraja swami kritis (THYAGARAJA SWARARCHANA) for 12 hours non-stop performance from 9 AM to 9.15 pm – nominated her name in LIMCA BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS
-By presenting Thyagaraja swami kritis (THYAGARAJA SWARARCHANA 2 ) 14 hours non-stop performance from 7.30 AM to 9.30 PM – nominated her name in INDIA BOOK OF RECORDS
In contrast to this single artiste project, Girija is the founder of Sesha Sai Sangeetha Academy -through which she conducted many workshops and taught patriotic songs to many street children and rag pickers of Jan Vikas Society, Mumbai.
She visited orphan homes in Panvel and Kopherkairne and conducted free workshop and taught them patriotic songs. She prepared them for a performance on 26th Jan 2010. This touching act of spreading the knowledge of divine music showed her enthusiasm to inculcate patriotism in the deserted children. Prior to this project she has taken up many projects to teach patriotic songs to the municipal school children. She also taught songs in different languages to 1500 school children and had a grand program on 26th Jan 2008 along with 1500 school children in Mumbai, which was inspired by many teachers in Mumbai.
Her another notable project with her service oriented nature made her to conduct a workshop for women prisoners in Chanchalguda jail,Hyderabad by teaching them patriotic songs which is an act of humanity towards people and nation.Apart from that she conducted many workshops for women so they can put that seed of interest towads carnatic music on their children and grand children.
A program of her in the name of SIVAPADAM the songs of Sri Samavedam Shanmukha Sarma garu composed and sung by Dr Girija garu and the explanation by Sri Samavedam Shanmukha Sarma garu at Mumbai was a memorable program to Mumbai Telugu people.
Besides music she is a Kuchipudi dancer and holds a certificate from kalakshethra and also a Veena and Violin player too. Multi talented Girija Seshamamba has taken Music as her career and bagged many achievements and awards from various reputed organizations.To say few:
- Two World records (Limca Book of World Reords and India Book of Records)
- Doctorate
- Gold medal
- Apoorva Raga Gana Kokila
- Sangeetha Sri
- Sangeetha Saraswathi
- Karnataka Sangeetha Kausthubham
- Dasabda Mahila
- Andhra Ratnam
- State Best Citizen -
In addition to above she was also honoured as Asthana Vidushimani for “Trisakthi Peetham” and “SivaRama Kshethram”.
She composed and recorded an album called “Bhakthi Mala” and CD was released in which 108 songs were written and composed by DR.Girija and gave opportunity to her her student to sing in that project.
DR. Girija has released CD’s on
- Thyagaraja Apoorva Ragas(compositions on Apoorva ragas of Thyagaraja)
- Vividha Vaggeyakara Lahari(Krithis of different composers)
L.L.B. AIBE Advocate
With a performing career of more than 40 years, Dr.Girija Seshamamba –performer, writer, composer and Guru has evolved her own identity and style and has made Music as medium for her expression. She also completed L.L.B and training many interested aspirants and showing world that with music you can achieve anything. She is now aiming to to inculcate the habit of learning music and pass it on to the next generations, she is creating and taking more opportunities to spread carnatic music, such as taking free classes through Sri Sesha Sai Sangeetha Academy by conducting free work shops.
All music listeners and Gurus proudly say that DR. Girija Seshamamba is only the person who has bagged Two World Records in the category of Carnatic classical vocal by presenting exclusively Tyagaraja Kritis.
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