Mavelikkara Velukkutty Nair was born on 2 October 1926 in Chettikulangara, Alleppey district, Kerala. He had undergone preliminary lessons in Mridangam from father Mridanga Vidwan Muthukulam S. Kumara Pillai. Later undergone advanced training from Maestro Sangeetha Kalanidhi Padmabhooshan Palghat Mani Iyer under Gurukula system for a period of 8 years. Late Palghat R. Raghu and Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman were also disciples of Palghat Mani Iyer along with him.
Career
He joined the Kerala State Government Service as Teacher in Mridangam at Sri. Swathi Thirunal College of Music in 1959. He has the distinction of being the first teaching faculty at the mridangam department of the Sri. Swathi ThirunalCollege of Music, Trivandrum. He retired as Professor and Head, Department of Mridangam from the same college in 1982. Had been Visiting Professor during 1984–85. Had been imparting advanced training to students from across the country with Government of India cultural scholarship. The curriculum on mridangam developed by him is still being followed in all the three music colleges in the State. He was an avowed vocalist too. He was one of the very few Mridangam artists who had proved both as a brilliant performer as well as a great Guru. He died on 24 July 2012. He is survived by wife Rajamma, three sons and five daughters. His son N V Babunarayanan is a noted violinist. His daughter R. Rajalakshmi is Asst. Professor in Swathi Thirunal College of Music, Trivandrum.
Disciples
of a big list of disciples from all over the country, which includes direct disciples B Harikumar, Late T V Vasan, Trivandrum V Surendran, Prof. Parassala B Ravi, Alleppey Chandrasekharan Nair, Late R. Vaidyanathan, Erickavu N. Sunil, Trivandrum M. Balasubramaniam, G S Rajeshnath, Mavelikkara Balachandran, Vaikom Prasad, etc. Apart from this, a big list of students from Swathi Thirunal College of Music, during his service there.
Concerts
He had accompanied concerts of 4 generations of musicians, starting from the leading exponents of Karnatic Music. The list includes Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Alathur Brothers, G. N. Balasubramaniam, Emani Sankara Sastry, Madhurai Mani Iyer, Nedunoori Krishnamoorthy, K. V. Narayanaswamy, M. D. Ramanathan, Dr. S. Ramanathan, Olleti Venkiteswaralu, Rajamundri M. S. Balasubrahmanya Sharma, D. K. Pattammal, D. K. Jayaraman, M. L. Vasanthakumari, T. V. Sankaranarayanan, Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna, K. S. Narayana Swami, S. Balachandar, Chitti Babu, T. N. Krishnan, Lalgudi Jayaraman, M. S. Gopalakrishnan, Maharajapuram Santhanam, Andhra Balasubramoniam, T. N. Seshagopalan, Trichur V. Ramachandran, Mavelikkara Prabhakara Varma, Neyyattinkara Vasudevan, Vaikom Vasudevan Nair, T. K. Govinda Rao, Parassala B. Ponnammal, T. S. Kalyanaraman, T. M. Thyagarajan, Dr. N. Ramani, Dr. K. J. Yesudas, O. S Thyagarajan, U. Srinivas, T. V. Gopalakrishnan, T. M. Krishna, Chitravina N. Ravikiran, etc. He had performed a few vocal concerts as well for which Maestros Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman and Guruvayur Dorai had accompanied on Mridangam.
