Embar Kannan

Embar S. Kannan was born into a family of musicians and began violin at the age of six. His early training included Subbanna Bhagavathar and Vittal Ramamurthy, followed by mentorship under A. Kanyakumari.

He became a Grade A Top artist of All India Radio and accompanied leading Carnatic musicians including T. V. Sankaranarayanan, T. N. Seshagopalan, Sudha Raghunathan, Kadri Gopalnath, P. Unnikrishnan, Bombay Jayashree, and S. Sowmya.

Kannan also trained in Western classical music and worked extensively in Tamil film music, including with Ilaiyaraja's orchestra. He is noted for introducing the silent violin into Carnatic performance contexts in the early 2000s.