He was awarded the Bala Gana Kala Rathnam at the age of 12. He worked in All India Radio.[2]
In 1999, he was conferred the title, 'Sangita Kala Acharya' by the Music Academy.[3] He was awarded `Padma Bhushan' by the Government of India in 2003.[1][4][5][6] His well known disciples include (alphabetically) A.s.Murali, Akshay Padmanabhan, Abhishek Raghuram, Akkarai Sisters, Amritha Murali, Bharathi Ramasubban, C.R.Vaithyanathan, Gayathri Venkataraghavan, Kalavathy Avadhooth, Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna, Nisha Rajagopalan, Ranjani-Gayatri sisters, Bharat Sundar,
Sunil Gargeyan, Vishnudev K S, Janani Iyer, and Prithvi Harish