Terada Yoshitaka, Professor Emeritus at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan and the Graduate University of Advanced Studies, holds an MA and a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Washington. He has also served as a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester-at-Sea program, New York University, Universität Bonn and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research areas include India, Philippines, Japan and Asian America. He is the editor of Music and Society in South Asia: Perspectives from Japan, a collection of essays on South Asian performing arts by Japanese scholars (National Museum of Ethnology, 2008) and his India-related articles have been published in reputed international journals and as book chapters. For the past twenty years, he has also experimented on filmmaking methods and produced more than thirty films on musical traditions from diverse locations, including two on India.
<p>Terada Yoshitaka, Professor Emeritus at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan began his journey with South Indian music with a rather simple query. Why had Periya Melam (the traditional musical genre featuring the nagasvaram and the tavil), which is considered to be extremely important in the religious and social life of South Indian Hindus, been neglected by both Indian and non-Indian scholars? As he began his field research, Terada realized that the history of Periya Melam is inextricably linked with the life of the master of nagasvaram, T.N. Rajarattinam Pillai (1989-1956). T.N. Rajarattinam Pillai: Charisma, Caste Rivalry and the Contested Past in South Indian Music focuses on the influential artist’s life and work, illuminating important aspects of caste-based relations in South Indian music. Backed by extensive field research and scholarship, this book is also a pioneering ethnographic account of Periya Melam, its practitioners and the significant changes in the genre that took place in the twentieth century.</p><div><br></div>
