It’s a festival of music that was started by the great carnatic music maestro Chembai Vydyanatha Iyer. It is a celebration of carnatic music at the Guruvayoor temple. Chembai started this festival to show his devotion to the Lord Guruvayurappan, which is the main deity of Guruvayoor temple.
Chembai Vydyanatha Iyer is a renowned carnatic musician from Chembai village of Palghat district in Kerala. Apart from vocal music, he used to play Violin too. The famous musician K J Yesudas is one of the disciples of Chembai and so is P Leela.
Thousands of Carnatic music lovers from all over the world congregate to participate in this festival spread over two weeks every year, starting on ekadesi of November at Guruvayoor temple. Guruvayoor temple is located near Trichur town. Guruvayoor is well connected by road and rail – about 80Km from Cochin International Airport and 100 Km from Calicut.
Chembai used to conduct this festival for over 60 years and after 1974, the temple board took over the festival.
During the festival, hundreds of musicians sing about five favourite songs of Chembai along with pancharatna krithis of Thyagaraja, the maestro. Majority of musicians usually comes from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and there are many that come all the way from USA and Europe.
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