Shri Vankayala Venkata Ramanamurthy

Shiva is a very passionate mridangam artist, performer, teacher and carnatic music rasika. He has been a student of music since the age of 7. He started his training under the late Vidwan Shri N Govindarajan, an accomplished ghatam artist from Chennai. Then he learnt from Vidwan Shri Vankayala Venkata Ramanamurthy in Visakhapatnam, a A-top Graded artist belonging to the Mullapudi Lakshmana Rao mridangam, popularized by the late Shri Vankayala Narasimham, father of Shri Ramanamurthy and also the teacher of famed mridangam artist Shri Patri Satish Kumar in Chennai. Shiva also learnt for about 2 years from Shri Patri Satish Kumar in Chennai. Since then, he has performed in several concerts in Chennai, including in his alma mater IIT Madras. Since moving to the US in 2015, he has performed for Navatman in New York City on multiple occasions, including a concert in their reputed Drive East 2021 annual music festival. He was also a musician and composer in the "Mahabharata: Of Vengeance and Promises", a film by Navatman. Shiva is also trained in carnatic vocal and continues to learn from Smt N Vijayalakshmi, brother of his late guru Shri N Govindarajan, in Chennai. He has also been teaching mridangam to young and aspiring students of music since 2019.