R.S. Jayalakshmi

R.S. Jayalakshmi is a senior Carnatic veena player, teacher and musicologist based in Chennai. Her father, R. Subramanian Iyer, who ran a shop selling musical instruments, started her in music at the age of six; her older sister took up the violin and she chose the veena. Her first veena teacher was Muthiah, a staff artist at All India Radio, after which she studied under vidwan V. Raghavan. She took the Teachers' Training Course at the Music Academy, and at 21 won a Government of India scholarship to study veena under vidwan R. Pichumani Iyer. She also learned padams and javalis, and compositions of Muthuswami Dikshitar and Subbaraya Sastry, from T. Muktha.

An A-grade artist with All India Radio, she began performing at sabhas including Sri Krishna Gana Sabha and the Indian Fine Arts Society. She holds a PhD in music from the University of Madras and taught in its music department for more than 30 years. She teaches at the Advanced School of Carnatic Music run by the Music Academy and at the Haridoss Giri School of Music of Narada Gana Sabha, sits on the Academy Council of the Tamil Nadu Music and Fine Arts University, and has chaired the Department of Carnatic Music at the University of Silicon Andhra in the United States. She worked with Pappu Venugopala Rao on the English translation of Sangita Sampradaya Pradarshini and has examined for universities in Singapore and Australia. Mudhra gave her the Vainika Mudhra Award at Veenotsav 2017, and the Music Academy named her Sangita Kala Acharya in 2022.