Dr Kanniks Kannikeswaran, a pioneer in Indian American choral music, brilliantly presents the life and contributions of the legendary composer and singer, Shri Muthusvāmi Dīkshitar (in some sense, the Bach of the East), through his Anubhūti.

From the opening chapters introducing the basics of music, Kanniks guides us with vivid clarity through a chronology of Dīkshitar’s life — his early years, his teacher-learner relationships, the uniqueness of his musical output, his temple learning, his musical pilgrimages, his spiritual philosophy, his colonial interlude, etc.

“A simplistic description of Dīkshitar’s kritis would be to state that they are essentially mantras delivered through the medium of music," says Kanniks. The richly textured content succeeds in keeping the reader engaged with gracefully woven stories from the lives of great incarnations, saints, personalities, and legends.

As a contextual backdrop to why Dr Kannikeswaran is the ideal person to write this material, the author has generously poured his expansive wealth of knowledge in music, temples, and his own lifelong creative journey into dialogue with Dīkshitar’s.

As a composer-educator, the author has spent more than three decades building Indian American community choirs, cultivating a “new sound" of raga-based ensemble music in the U.S., inspiring thousands of singers, and founding choirs in over a dozen cities.

His flagship, first-of-its-kind oratorio Shānti – A Journey of Peace merged Indian classical and Western choral traditions, reimagining Sanskrit chants and ragas for large mixed choruses and orchestras. Most recently, his Eagai was a resounding success with hundreds of performers and thousands of captivated spectators celebrating a symphony of Tamil — its spirituality, its culture, and its ethic of giving and sharing.

Furthermore, this book is not a standalone work on Dīkshitar by Kanniks. The author has published multiple articles on Dīkshitar, beginning as early as 2007, including his doctoral dissertation. Across all these and more such works, Kanniks has........

© News18