In 1933, a mother and daughter duo migrated from Madurai to Madras seeking concert opportunities. It was just over a year since the 16 year-old girl had made a powerful impression at a concert during the Mahamakham festival at Kumbhakonam. In the capital city of Madras Presidency, they had called on the important personages in the field of music and the girl’s singing was praised, even by the hard-to-please Veena Dhanam. On the 28th of December 1933, she gave her first public concert in Madras city, accompanied by her mother on the veena and T Gururajappa on the violin. No mridangam artiste is mentioned in the advertisements released for the occasion.
The concert was at the Saundarya Mahal in George Town and was organised by the Indian Fine Arts Society, one of the two rival organisations then involved in the December Music Season. The other institution, the Music Academy, did not feature her that year. The IFAS’ concert of December 1933 was very favourably received and from then on there was no looking back. MS Subbulakshmi became a fixture on the Madras concert circuit. But the Music Academy, by then the premier Sabha, still did not feature her. In 1934 she was invited to attend the Music Academy’s annual conference but was not asked to sing. She dutifully attended the theory sessions and the deliberations in the company of other women such as her mother, the Harikatha exponent C Saraswathi Bai, the singer Madras Lalithangi and the latter’s six-year-old daughter, the future star, ML Vasanthakumari. In 1935, MS was given a concert slot at the Academy’s annual season and that year she was one of the few singers who came in for praise from The Hindu’s acerbic critic KV Ramachandran.
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