Jayanthi Kumaresh

Jayanthi Kumaresh, born in 1969, represents the sixth generation of a family of musicians. Her first teacher was her mother, Lalgudi Rajalakshmi, from the age of three. At thirteen she entered the gurukul of her aunt, the veena player Vidushi Padmavathy Ananthagopalan, where she remained for twenty-two years, and she later studied with the veena player S. Balachander. She received further guidance from her maternal uncle, the violinist Lalgudi Jayaraman, and from T. Brinda, T. R. Subramaniam and Thanjavur Shankara Iyer. She is married to the violinist Kumaresh Rajagopalan of the duo Ganesh–Kumaresh.

She is the youngest veena player to hold the A-Top grading of All India Radio, and took a doctorate at the University of Mysore for an analytical study of the playing styles and techniques of the Saraswati veena, including its treatment in classical treatises and more recent electronic instruments.

She has performed since the early 1980s at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, the NCPA in Mumbai, Lincoln Center and the Sydney Opera House, and at the BBC Proms, the Darbar Festival, Celtic Connections, WOMADelaide and the Bengal Classical Music Festival. She founded the twenty-one-member Indian National Orchestra, which sets Carnatic and Hindustani players alongside one another, and has given North–South jugalbandi concerts with Ustad Zakir Hussain, the violinist Kala Ramnath, Purbayan Chatterjee and Rakesh Chaurasia. In 2024 she played the Sydney Opera House with the trio Triveni, alongside Kala Ramnath and Zakir Hussain. Her web series "Cup O' Carnatic", begun in 2016, introduces ragas and compositional forms, and was staged as a live production in Bengaluru in 2024 and Chennai in 2025.

She received the Sangeet Shikhar Samman from the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in 2019, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2022, and was announced as the recipient of the Sangita Kalanidhi for 2026.

Solo Saraswati veena in the Carnatic concert format, where the player must produce gamaka by pulling the string across the fret rather than by bowing or blowing, and where the instrument carries both the melodic line and much of its own accompaniment.