My Compelling Story

Trichur C Narendran is a professional mridangam artist based out of the capital city of Tamil Nadu, Chennai. Born in a family of scholars and musicians, Narendran was initiated into an early training in mridangam by Sri Kongorppilly Parameswaran Namboodiri who spotted his talent during a dance rehearsal at an annual family get-together at Manakkulam Palace and started teaching Narendran the basics of mridangam when he was just seven. It was David Bhagavathar of Kunnamkulam who instilled in him the interest in music and inspired him to seriously take up the mridangam. Later it was Koduvayur Radhakrishnan and Sri EP Narayana Pisharodi who trained him further. Narendran had the most precious opportunities to be one of the early pupils of Palghat R Raghu from 1973. It was the scholarship awarded by the Government of India that provided the fecundity for him to learn the finer and the most intricate techniques of mridangam playing from maestro Padmashri Palghat R Raghu. He has played for KJ Yesudas and Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar at Peringode at the age of 15 along with his elder brother, Thrissur C Rajendran. From a very young age, Narendran has been accompanying throughout India with maestros like MS Subbulakshmi, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Dr M Balamuralikrishna, Palghat KV Narayanaswami, Nedunnoori Krishnamurthi, TM Thyagarajan, Dr S Ramanathan, Voletti Venkateswarulu, etc.