Dr Karaikudi Subramanian is one of the senior and foremost Vina maestros in India. He is a ninth generation musician in the illustrious Karaikudi Vina Tradition from South India, and disciple of his grand uncle and adoptive father, the legendary Vina player, Karaikudi Sambasiva Iyer.
He was awarded Ph.D in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, USA for his thesis: “South Indian Vina-Tradition and Individual Style” in 1985 with a fellowship from Asian Cultural Council in 1983. He retired as a Professor of Music from the University of Madras (1986-2002). He has performed and collaborated with leading world musicians across the globe. In 1989 he founded Brhaddhvani, Research and Training Centre for Musics of the World in Chennai, and developed a pioneering methodology COMET (Correlated Objective Music Education and Training) combining tradition and technology, arts and science, preservation and propagation methods reaching out to world musicians, dancers, actors, children and music therapy. Dr. Subramanian has been associated with PRSSV for nearly two decades advising and developing curriculums for music education in the UK.