Prince Rama Varma

Prince Rama Varma is a Carnatic singer, veena artist and a mentor of the Rotterdam Conservatory of Music. He was born to Pooyam Thirunal Parvati Bayi and Chembrol Raja Raja Varma, on 13th of August 1968. He was born in the Royal family of Travancore, which has been closely associated with music and art. Prince RamaVarma is the descendant of Maharaja Swati Thirunal, the outstanding composer and Raja Ravi Varma, the pioneering artist. He is the first in the royal family to perform publicly.

Prince Rama Verma, a post graduate in Commerce started learning music in 1982, from Vechur Hariharasubramany Iyer, a disciple of Semmangudi. In 1994, when his guru passed away he continued his music training under Sangeetha Kalanidhi Dr Balamuralikrishna. He learnt Saraswati veena under Trivandrum R Venkitaraman and then under K.S.Narayaswamy, the pioneer of Carnatic music.

Prince Rama Varma, the Indian maestro has participated in concerts in India and in other countries like USA, UK, France, Germany, Kuwait, Dubai and The Netherlands, to name a few. He has the honour of performing in some of the prestigious venues of the world like The Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, where his maiden music CD was released. He is a true admirer of music, he once said,"I am open to all varieties of music and never bound to one particular school or thought of music."

Prince Rama Varma has contributed immensely to the development of music by organizing South Indian and North Indian Classical Music festivals commonly known as Navarathri Mandapam , at the palace of Maharaja Swathi Thirunal in Trivandrum. Another progressive move taken by him was to break the three hundred year old tradition of excluding women from performing at the 'mandapam'. He invited women musicians to perform at the mandapam. The President of India, Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam is an admirer of Prince Varma's music, he invited him at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, to listen to his music.

Check out the interview of Varmaji in bakti television. The speaker speaks in telugu and Varmaji responds in English. He talks about his anccestor Maharaja Swati tirunal, and his gurus. Though he is from a royal background, it's amazing to see how humble he is.