Profile of R. Visweswaran :

R. Visweswaran hails from a family of musicians. He is nephew of the legendary 
Carnatic musician, the late Sri G.N.Balasubramaniam, popularly known as GNB.

A Chartered Accountant by education, Visweswaran gave up his profession to pursue 
his saadhana in music. Multidisciplinary in his musical skills, he is one of the seniormost 
disciples of the Santoor maestro Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma. He has the rare distinction of
being the only South Indian to play the Kashmiri Santoor, in a professional capacity. A graded 
artiste of All India Radio and an empanelled artiste of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations,
he has performed extensively all over India and abroad on the santoor. He has to his credit 
several noteworthy concerts all around India. At an international level, his concerts at South 
Bank Kufa gallery & Bhavan Centre, London and his participation in the International Jazz Festival at 
Rouen and the Montelimar Festival deserve special mention. On the occasion of the celebrations of the 
fiftieth year of India’s Independence, he was delegated by the ICCR to present Santoor concerts 
as part of the official presentations at the House of World Cultures, Berlin and several other cities of Germany. His interaction with musicians of international repute, such as John Kaizen Neptune, Shakuhachi flautist of Japan and Terry Allen of USA has culminated in the form of albums.

Belonging to the great Carnatic parampara of the late wizard G N Balasubramaniam,Sri Visweswaran has brought a new dimension to the santoor by playing Carnatic music on it .He is the first musician to present Carnatic music concerts on the santoor . Besides presenting solo performances in this genre he has played in this capacity with Balamurali Krishna, Ravi Kiran (Chitraveena) , Ganesh Kumaresh (Violin) G J R Krishnan(Violin), Mambalam Shiva (Nadaswaram), Rajeshwari Padmanabhan (Veena) Mudikondan Ramesh (Veena).

He is also a Carnatic Vaineeka and a vocalist-composer of no mean repute. Married to the celebrated Bharatanatyam dancer Padma Shri Smt Chitra Visweswaran, his vocal accompaniment and music compositions for her dance have contributed considerably to the richness and aesthetic sensitivity of the dance presentation. In this capacity he has toured all over the world covering all major festivals in India and innumerable cities abroad. In this context, he has received direct guidance in the dance-compositions of Sri Lalgudi G Jayaraman, from violin maestro himself. In addition he has had specialised training in Padam singing from Smt T Muktha, cousin of the late legendry dancer, Smt T Balasaraswathi. He has also had the privilege of working on composer Annamacharya’s Kritis under none other than Smt.M.S.Subbalakshmi and on Swati Tirunal and Purandaradasa Kritis under the late K V Narayaswamy.

Visweswaran’s prowess as a Carnatic vocalist composer is no less. In addition to presenting Hindustani/ Carnatic music on the santoor, he has also presented Carnatic vocal concerts. His appearance as a Carnatic vocalist, at Salt Lake City, Kolkata at a concert arranged by the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre in association with the Odissi Research Academy, Bhubaneswar, in juxtaposition to Ustad Rashid Khan’s Hindustani, deserves special mention. This multi dimensional musician who has studied Saraswati Veena has the unique qualification of a licentiate in teaching in Western Classical Guitar from Trinity College, London to which is harnessed his self taught studies on Flamenco Guitar.