THE JOURNEY
BIOGRAPHY
PASSION FOR MUSIC
EARLY LIFE
On Nov 20th 1979, KG Venugopal and CR Jayalekshmi were blessed with a son. They named him Vijesh CV. Little did they know that they were going to be the proud parents of a highly talented musician who will be recognized by the world in the future.
Vijesh Gopal, as he was later renamed by Devarajan master, spent his childhood at his native in Kuzhupilly, Vypin. From a very young age, his parents recognized his passion and skill to become a musician. As very supportive parents, they admitted him to learn music under the best music teachers of the time.
During his entire school life, Vijeshgopal was an active participant and an expected winner for almost all music competition including Classical Music, Light Music and Violin. His skills in recitation and mrithangam were also notable. Later, he went on to become the Kalaprathibha in the Vypin Subjilla for 5 consecutive years. He was also among the very few people who participated and won a few prizes in the Kerala State Youth fest competitions from the Vypin Subjilla. Other competitors included renowned talents like Bhavyalakshmi and Balabaskar.
Although back then his focus was mostly left on Violin, he realized the potential and scope for his vocal skills. Hence, he started giving more attention to it. Eventually, he decided to opt for singing over the violin as his career.
Vijesh was also the winner of the All Kerala Kalasadan competition conducted by the famous musical troop from Thrissur. Following this, an opportunity soon came to him for a recording in a professional drama. Sebi Nayarambalam took him to a recording studio for the first time when he was just 17 years old.
THE TURNING POINT
Sri Sachin Kaitharam, a renowned flute artist noticed his talent and instantly knew his potential. Sachin asked Vijeshgopal to join him to Trivandrum to meet Devarajan Master. Although Devarajan Master was going through a very difficult time, he listened to Vijesh’s music. He was inspired but yet he pointed out the mistakes that came in his way. He also promised that he will call him back once everything was sorted.
Vijesh soon went back and joined the Palakkad Engineering College in the year 1999. Somewhere in the year 2000, Devarajan Master asked him to come back and join him as his student. The years ahead of that, Vijesh was on a constant run completing his engineering degree while being the beloved student of the famous Devarajan Master during the weekends.
His parents always supported his passion and to give him a bit more headstart they enrolled him for a music competition on TV called Gandharva Sangeetham. A blessed singer and a fine talent, he was selected as one of the finalists. However, he had to withdraw from the program as Devarajan Master planned to introduce him as one of the ‘Singers for The New Millenium along with Sudip Kumar, Vidhu Prathap, Dr Rashmi and Julie Jose during the same time.
This glorious announcement was made on January 1, 2001, along with a grand program that Devarajan Master conducted. Post this, he got many opportunities to record multiple songs for various dramas and channels. But what Vijesh thinks as his greatest blessing is the opportunity to sing 6 songs under his master’s guidance.
After the completion of his Engineering, he and his family decided that following his passion will be his future. So he went back to practicing under Devarajan Master as his fulltime student. Vijesh believes that his entire career is a blessing from his beloved master who put relentless efforts and stood adamant to bring his favourite student to the focus. He was even given a chance to sing the opening song on Master’s 75th birthday although most of the world-famous singers were present there.
Until Master passed away in 2006, he continued as his mentor who inspired him in a million ways. Other famous personalities who played huge roles in Vijesh’s life were Johnson Master, Sri Kaithapram sir, his brother Kaithapram Vishwanathan and Vidyadharan master who gave him many opportunities. He was lucky enough to work on a couple of movies including Photographer with Johnson Master. He was able to support Johnson Master with music composition throughout the entire ‘Photographer’ movie. He also got a chance to sing in this movie.
FAMILY
Vijesh married Aswathy S Kumar in the year 2009 and they now have 2 kids Saathvik and Darsith In the year 2011 Vijesh had to shoulder more family responsibilities after his father passed away. For almost 3 years, he took a break from his passion to work in the private sector. Later, he even had to start off on his own for a couple of years.
FIRST BREAKTHROUGH
Finally, in the year 2015, he bounced back to his passion for music by singing for the movie ‘Madhura Naranga’. Thereafter, he has started to dedicate more time to his musical journey. Meanwhile, he has also won back his way with violin with persistence practice.
Recent additions to his awards and recognition are the JC Danielle Rajaratna award and Johnson Master memorial award organized by Evergreen Books. He now looks forward to introducing more optimism into everybody’s life through music. He has set up an at-home studio to do independent works and he finds great joy in teaching music to students all around the world. His devotion to music has been the elixir of his life.
THE LEGACY OF VIJESH'S MUSIC
Vijesh started learning music under a lady teacher named Mani and later trained under Sudhan Vachakal followed by Jayakumar Shenoy. Ponkunnam Ramendran, Prabakara Varma, Tripunithura Vinayachandran and Kumara Kerala Varma were also among his few glorious music teachers. While at Palakkad he trained under Puthuperiyaram Unnikrishnan. After a short break from music, he came back by practising under Mavelikkara Subramanian.
He learned violin under Sri Aravindhakshan and Sri Sunil Bhaskar. He later got the opportunity to practise under the renowned violinist T H Subramaniam. As a talented musician, Vijesh also got the chance to train under RLV Radhakrishnan and Kalamandalam Hyder Ali to learn Kathakali music. Vijesh is deeply indebted to all the people who have helped him polish and develop his skills.