Legendary Carnatic musician M Balamuralikrishna passed away at the age of 86 at his residence in Chennai.
According to his family members, he had been suffering from ill health for the past few days.
Born in Sankaraguptam in Andhra Pradesh state in 1930, Balamuralikrishna was a Carnatic vocalist, played multiple instruments, composer and actor. A crowd-puller in Carnatic music concerts, musician was also popular among Tamil audiences for his hit number “Oru Naal Pothuma” in the 1965 Sivaji Ganesan starrer “Thiruvilayadal”, a mythological film. He even starred in a number of films in Tamil and Telugu.
He is the recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second biggest civilian honour.
He also received the Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, from the French government for his contribution to the arts in 2005. Balamurali Krishna was a Padma Vibhushan recipient and was also honoured with a number of state awards. Leading lights of Carnatic music condoled his death.
A video of one of his live concerts:
People took to Twitter to pay their tributes to one of Indian classical music’s greats:
(Feature image source: WikiCommons)
(With inputs from PTI)