Quick Facts
Biography
Parassala B. Ponnammal (also known as Parassala Ponnammal) is an Indian Carnatic musician. She was born to Mahadeva Iyer and Bhagavathy Ammal in a Kerala Iyer family in 1924 in Parassala in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala.
On 23 September 2006, she sang at the Navaratri Mandapam in Trivandrum, after 300 years of tradition that forbid women from performing at or attending the famed Navaratri Celebrations of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Kerala.
Life and career
Ponnammal was the first female student to enroll in the newly started Swathi Thirunal College of Music in Thiruvananthapuram during the early 1940s. Later she became the first female member of the teaching faculty there. She was the first woman principal to head the RLV College of Music and Fine Arts at Tripunithura.
She has travelled far and wide in India and abroad during the last 75 years and has conducted concerts.
Awards and honours
Padma Shri, Government of India, New Delhi. 2017.
M.G.Radhakrishnan Award, 2016.
Lifetime Achievement Award, Chennai Fine Arts, Chennai, Tamil Nadu on 23 March 2015.
Sangeetha Prabhakara Award, 2012.
S. Ganesha Sarma Award, instituted by Ganesha Sarma Educational and Charitable Society, 2009.
Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, 2009.
Swathi Sangeetha Puraskaram, 2009.
Sree Guruvayurappan Chembai Puraskaram, 2009
Notable disciples
- N. J. Nandini
- M. G. Radhakrishnan
- Dr. K. Omanakutty
- Neyyattinkara Vasudevan