From my friend Vijaya Baskaran, I received the sad news that John Britto passed away.
1975/1976 I studied in Annamalai University near Chidambaram, Tamilnad, India. John Britto and Vijaya Baskaran were my translators and friends in the university. Without them I couldn't have survived because there were only two "white" students in Annamalai University. Britto studied carnatic violin in the music academy. He was enormously gifted, a born musician. His family were poor catholic cashew nut farmers from a small village. Through shere determination he made it through pre-college. His vision was to adapt carnatic music to catholic church use. He succeeded beautifully: fifty years later the music he composed for the Christian community of South-India has become the their common cultural heritage. I guess few people remember that there was a time they didn't have native South-Indian church music and probably also forgot that it was Britto who created this music by combining classical carnatic music, Tamil film music and small band polyphony.
(Please click on the picture to hear Britto playing.)
Britto was one of the models for "Arun", the hero of my carnatic novel "Ocean of Love".
Christoph and I paid for Britto's studies until his doctorate and most wonderful in the world we live in... he remembered it and was thankful for our help all his life. Here is one of his compositions:
