Carnatic vocal and veena, founded in Hanamkonda by Palivela Rama Devi and carried forward by three generations.
Weekly classes with Palivela Rama Devi and Bharathi Palivela in Hyderabad, Chandana Kamarsu in North Carolina, and online.
Classes and timings →The instrument Swara Sudha was built around, taught by the founder and her daughter Chandana.
Meet the family →From a home in Nakkalagutta to festivals with Malladi Brothers, Chitravina Ravikiran and Vani Jayaram.
Read the history →About · Our history
Palivela Rama Devi learnt the veena because her father wished the girls of the house to learn it. He sent her to Nuzvid to train under Phanibhatla Siva Subrahmanya Sastry, principal of the Lalitha Kalashala there.
Back in Hanamkonda she found little support for classical music in a district that loved folk and film songs. With encouragement from Parsa Kodandarama Rao and his wife, Dr. Anjani Devi, she started Swara Sudha in Nakkalagutta, Hanamkonda, in 1981 with fewer than ten students. Dr. Anjani Devi went on to light the lamp at the anniversary festival year after year.
The school taught vocal and veena, and later mridangam, to children, working professionals and officials. At its height it had over a hundred students at a time; over four decades, thousands have learnt here. Parents who came to watch their children perform began joining classes themselves. Each February the school held its anniversary festival, Madhura Tarangalu, where students performed and a leading artist gave the evening concert.
Her four daughters, Himabindu, Chandana, Bharathi and Sudhamsa, grew up on that stage and built the school with her.
Palivela Rama Devi begins teaching veena and vocal music at home in Nakkalagutta, Hanamkonda, with fewer than ten students.
On 21 April 1983, her guru Sri Phanibhatla Subrahmanya Sastry plays a veena concert at the TTD Kalyana Mandapam, Hanamkonda.
Annual concerts held under a printed cloth canopy at the school, with All India Radio staff artists accompanying. Invitations are printed in Telugu.
The anniversary becomes a multi-day festival at the Zilla Parishad Meeting Hall: student vocal and veena recitals, then a guest concert. The veena-and-mridangam emblem appears on every card.
Sahasrabdi Vedukalu: a new-year evening of light music, sitar and dance alongside the annual festival with the Hyderabad Brothers.
The 20th-anniversary festival moves to Nandana Gardens with the Malladi Brothers. In 2003 Chitravina N. Ravikiran performs.
Two days of celebrations on 25–26 February 2006. The founder is honoured by students, parents and the town.
Close to a hundred students on stage at the 2008 festival. At Ugadi 2009, playback singer Vani Jayaram performs, covered by The Hindu.
Rama Devi continues to teach in Hanamkonda. Bharathi taught under the Swara Sudha name in Santa Clara, California, while Chandana taught in the Houston area and later in Cary, North Carolina.
Rama Devi lives with Bharathi in Tellapur, Hyderabad. Bharathi teaches vocal in Hyderabad and online; Chandana teaches veena and vocal in Cary, North Carolina and online. A third generation, Amruthavarshini, performs in the United States.
Swara Sudha's golden jubilee. If you learnt here, sang here or listened here, share your story.
Guest artists at Madhura Tarangalu
Names as printed on the festival invitations.
Our ethos
సంగీత జ్ఞానము భక్తి వినా సన్మార్గము లేదు
Saṅgīta jñānamu bhakti vinā sanmārgamu lēdu
“Without devotion, the knowledge of music is not the true path.” Saint Thyagaraja's line was printed on Swara Sudha's invitations for years. It is how this family has lived and taught.
Nādopāsana
Every class begins with a prayer to the guru and to Saraswati, and every song is sung as an offering, not a performance.
Sadācāra
Vidyā dadāti vinayam: true learning gives humility. Honesty, kindness and respect for the teacher, the music and fellow students come before technique.
Nityasaṅgītam
In a traditional home, music is part of the day: at the morning lamp, at festivals, while raising children. We teach it to be lived, not only learnt.
Abhyāsa
Sarali varisai before varnams, varnams before kritis. Daily practice and the guru–shishya bond, without shortcuts.
Sabhā
From the first year, every student sings for an audience, beside the masters invited to Madhura Tarangalu, so that each learns from the best.
Paramparā
What a mother taught her four daughters is now taught across three generations and two continents. Every student becomes part of that line.
Āhvānam · Invitations
Every festival began with a printed card. Together they record the guests, the venues and the emblem as it changed. Select a card to read it.
Family · Three generations
Swara Sudha has always been run by one family. A mother founded it; four daughters carried it; a granddaughter now sings.
Founder · Veena and vocal
A disciple of Phanibhatla Siva Subrahmanya Sastry of Nuzvid, she founded Swara Sudha in Hanamkonda in 1981 and led the Madhura Tarangalu festival for over two decades.
Widely felicitated, she is regarded as one of the leading figures of Carnatic music, arts and culture in Warangal. Her students have gone on to become playback singers and music directors, and to found music schools of their own in Warangal and beyond.
Veena and vocal, Hyderabad and online: +91 98665 52376
Eldest · Hyderabad
Her mother's administrative right hand since childhood, she supported the school's activities, from enrolments to festival arrangements. She is the daughter-in-law of Sri Suri Venkateswarlu of Vignana Samithi, the Hyderabad music society. She lives in Hyderabad.
Veena and vocal · Cary, NC
She learnt the veena from her mother and performed widely on it through the years. From an early age she was the school's teaching mainstay, teaching its batches for close to fifteen years before moving to the US. She lives in North Carolina.
Read more
Vocal · Hyderabad
She carries the family's lineage in vocal performance. A child artist in the late 1980s, she grew into an All India Radio artiste, performing widely at concerts and on recordings before going on to Berklee College of Music, Boston. She is visiting faculty at IIT Hyderabad and lives in Hyderabad.
Read more
Youngest · Cary, NC
She learnt vocal music from her mother and supported her sisters in administration and concert performances alike. When her sisters moved away, she administered the school alongside her mother through its later festivals. She lives in North Carolina.
Veena and vocal · USA
Rama Devi's daughter, trained on the veena from childhood, who performed widely through her years at Swara Sudha. She taught in the Houston area and now teaches veena and vocal in Cary, North Carolina, and online.
She trained her daughter Amruthavarshini and took her to the ATA and NATA competitions, raising her into an artist of calibre. In her, Chandana carries forward the music her mother gave her.
US classes: +1 832 961 3012
Carnatic vocal · India, USA and online worldwide
Carnatic vocalist, graduate of Berklee College of Music, Boston, and an AIR B-High grade artiste.
Watch her interview with Acumen International School →
Bharathi was initiated into music by her mother, Smt. Rama Devi Palivela. She then trained in the gurukula tradition for nearly four years under Kum. Vizianagaram D. Vardhani, an AIR A-grade artiste, and later developed her style under Smt. S. Sowmya of Chennai while completing a Master's in Music at Madras University. Both gurus had performed at Swara Sudha's own festival.
In India she performed regularly in Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Warangal, at the Andhra Music Academy in Vizag, on All India Radio Hyderabad and at the Parthasarathy Sabha in Chennai.
At Berklee she was a lead vocalist in the Middle Eastern Ensemble, working with Hüsnü Şenlendirici, Simon Shaheen and Christiane Karam, and with musicians from Africa, Bulgaria, Greece, Japan, Spain, Turkey, South America and the United States. In the San Francisco Bay Area she performed at the Red Poppy Art House and Berkeley's Freight and Salvage, and composed and arranged Swaravedam, a symphonic-style Carnatic concert for more than 50 vocalists and 10 instrumentalists, staged from San Francisco to Dallas.
Her background vocals feature in Netflix title tracks. Recent work includes the ragamalika composition “Ramachandra, Raghuvara, Cheeyuthaneeyara” for Bhadrachala Sri Rama.
She has taught for a semester as teaching assistant to sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan at Stanford University, and is visiting faculty at IIT Hyderabad. She has also written letters of recommendation for students applying to US universities.
She now lives in Hyderabad and teaches children and young adults, in person and online.
Selected performances
Third generation
Chandana's daughter and Rama Devi's granddaughter, a Carnatic vocalist performing in the United States. She first learnt music from her grandmother, Smt. Palivela Rama Devi, her first guru, then from her mother, Smt. Chandana Kamarsu, and now learns from Sri Kyvalya Kumar Chilla.
She has won first place in both classical and non-classical music at the ATA, NATA and TANA competitions, and has performed at temples, mandirs and concert venues alongside artists including Nutana Mohan, Akhila Mamandur, Ramya Behara and Anjana Sowmya. Her YouTube channel
Listen
Select All India Radio recordings, concert recordings and improvisations.
All India Radio
Concert
Improvisation
Teachers
Three gurus, one tradition. All three teach in Telugu, in person and online. Choose by instrument, place and time.
శ్రీమతి పాలివెల రమాదేవి
Founder · Veena and vocal
More than four decades of teaching students of every age, from the first lesson to the stage, in the tradition she learnt in Nuzvid.
శ్రీమతి కామర్సు చందన
Veena and vocal
Taught Swara Sudha's batches in India for its first fifteen years before moving to the US, and has trained a new generation of veena and vocal enthusiasts in the fundamentals of Carnatic music.
శ్రీమతి పాలివెల భారతి
Vocal
Concert artist and Berklee graduate; visiting faculty at IIT Hyderabad, and once a teaching assistant to sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan at Stanford University. Teaches children and young adults, from foundations to concert repertoire.
In conversation
Bharathi Palivela in an interview by Acumen International School, on what a lifetime of Carnatic music, handed down through three generations, can give children today.
How Music Enhances Brain Development in Children · Acumen International School, YouTube
Classes
Lessons follow the traditional order: sarali varisai, geethams and varnams, then kritis.
Small weekly batches in Hyderabad with Smt. Rama Devi and Bharathi, and in Cary, North Carolina with Chandana.
The school's founding instrument. Lessons with Rama Devi garu in Hyderabad and with Chandana Kamarsu in Cary, North Carolina, in person or online.
Individual or paired lessons with all three gurus, for families anywhere. Early-morning slots in India fall in the US evening.
Archive · Press
Coverage in The Hindu, Eenadu, Sakshi and Vaartha, kept by the family since the 1990s.
Every photograph, card and clipping the family has kept, from 1981 to 2010. Choose a year, or see them all.
Stories · Alumni
Students of Rama Devi garu, Chandana or Bharathi; parents; listeners at Madhura Tarangalu in Warangal; artists, volunteers and organisers. Thousands of you are now spread across the world. As the school nears fifty years, we would love to hear from you.
The first stories will appear here once the family has read them.
Contact
Tell us a little about the student. Your request opens in WhatsApp, ready to send, and we will reply there.