One of the favourite disciples of violinist M. Chandrasekaran is R. Raghul who has had eighteen long years of training, first under Vasantha Kannan of Kolkata, then P. Govindarajan (a senior disciple of Chandrasekaran) and finally under the maestro himself for the last ten years. Now twenty four years old and with seven years of solid concert experience, he is one of the busiest young violin accompanists. 

His father remembers that Raghul, as a four-year old, would mimic a violinist with two drumsticks in hand. The persistence of this ‘drumstick art’ for two years led to his training in the real stuff in Calcutta. When the family shifted to Chennai and approached Chandrasekaran, he directed the boy to Govindarajan and after he attained sufficient proficiency, the guru himself took the boy under his wing. Now a determined professional with a busy schedule of programmes, Raghul still spends much of his free time with his guru. Emotional while talking about his guru, he says that he places him above everything else in the world. 

It is hard to believe that he is a post graduate in mathematics and has a diploma titled ‘Samartha’ conferred by the Samskrta Pracharini Sabha, Chittoor. His use of maths and Sanskrit is only to the extent they are applicable to music. Although he trained in vocal music for two years under the late O.V. Subramaniam, violin has taken precedence over all other matters. He is now a P.G. student of music under the distance education programme of Madras University. 

Raghul won the second prize in AIR’s music competitions held in 2003 and was automatically placed in the ‘B’ grade of performing artists. In 2007, he applied for upgradation to the higher ‘B-High’ grade but was pleasantly surprised to be directly elevated to the ‘A’ grade, a rarity with AIR. Apart from regular concerts on AIR, he has also performed in the Radio Sangeet Sammelam. 

Raghul has won the first prize in Music Academy’s competitions in 1998 and 2000 in the junior and senior categories respectively, as also the first prize in competitions conducted by the Indian Fine Arts Society and Mylapore Fine Arts Club in Chennai. He won the ‘Best Junior Violinist’ award consecutively for three years (2008 to 2010) at the Music Academy. Sri Krishna Gana Sabha presented him the M.D. Ananthachari award and T. Kesavulu award for violinists. 

A pleasant person on and off the stage, Raghul has also been receiving excellent reviews in the print media.