Thiruvananthapuram: Parassala B Ponnammal, a doyenne of Carnatic music, passed away here on Tuesday noon. She was 96.
'Ponnammal teacher', as she was fondly known, was the first woman to sing at the Navaratri Mandapam during the Navaratri Celebrations of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Trivandrum. With this momentous event in 2006, a 300-year tradition that forbade women from performing at or attending the event was broken.
She was also the first female student to enroll for the newly started Swathi Thirunal College of Music in Thiruvananthapuram during the early 1940s. Later she became the first female teaching faculty there.
In 2017, the country decorated her with the Padma Shri.
She is also the recipient of the Sangeet Natak Academy, Swathi Sangeetha Puraskaram - both in 2009 among many others.
Even at age 90 she used to sing and enthrall her listeners.
