Kalamandalam Neelakantan Nambisan (1920–1985) was a trend-setter Kathakali musician who played a crucial role in remoulding the aesthetics of singing for the classical dance-drama of Kerala, south India.
[2] Nambisan's weighty yet part-nasal music, which marked a quantum transition of Kathakali songs from its original Sopanam base to more of the Carnatic style, had such cascading effect on Kathakali music that it has since sounded radically different by becoming more ornate, sophisticated and bhava-oriented than ever.
Soon his qualities like dense voice, adherence to the pitch, emotive rendition and sense of rhythm found grooming under the tutelage of Venkitakrishna Bhagavatar.
He soon mastered anchoring the music part of story plays—be them the choreographically intricate type or ones meriting melodramatic rendition.
[citation needed] As a teacher, he joined Kerala Kalamandalam in 1946 and retired from his alma mater as its principal.