Trained in Carnatic as well as Western Classical methods, he is a Grade 'A top' artist of the All India Radio and is universally acclaimed as a soloist and an accompanist.

Born in a family of great musicians to Sangeetha Bhooshanam Sri Embar Sadagopan, Kannan took to playing the violin at the age of six.

[2] Shortly thereafter he received the Yuva Kala Bharathi from Bharat Kalachar and the ‘Best Violinist Award’ from the Madras Music Academy for eight consecutive years.

[3] Over the course of his Carnatic career he has accompanied many leading artists such as T. V. Sankaranarayanan, Trichur Ramachandran, T. N. Seshagopalan, Sudha Raghunathan, Kadri Gopalnath, P. Unnikrishnan, Bombay Jayashree and S. Sowmya.

In August 2006, he played the silent violin at Puttaparthi in the presence of Bhagawan Sri Satya Sai Baba with the musicians of the HeArtBeat Ensemble.