Valayapatti A. R. Subramaniam

Valayapatti A. R. Subramaniam is an Indian classical musician and percussionist, considered by many as one of the foremost prominent exponents of thavil also known as dolu, a traditional percussion instrument in Carnatic music, accompanying windpipe instruments such as nadaswaram, saxophone, clarinet, etc, and string instruments like violin, mandolin, etc.

The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2007, for his contributions to Music.

[3] Subramaniam was born in Valayapatti in Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu to Arumugham, a known Nagaswaram performer and learnt playing the instrument from his father.

[4] Later, he trained in thavil under Mannargudi Rajagopala Pillai and started performing as an accompanist to several known nagaswaram players such as Thiruveezhimizhalai brothers, Sembanarkoil brothers, Karukurichi P. Arunachalam, Namagiripettai Krishnan and Thirumeignanam Nataraja Sundaram Pillai.

Soon, he became a regular accompanist to Thiruvizha Jayashankar[5] and Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan and is reported to have performed at over 3000 concerts with the latter.