Kumari Rajna Swaminathan, disciple of Mrudangam Maestro Sri Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman is an upcoming young artiste in the field of Carnatic percussion. She started learning Mrudangam from her father Dr. P. K. Swaminathan at the age of 5 and came under the direct tutelage of Sri Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman at the age of 8. She is being intensively groomed by the Maestro as his protégé. She is a 15 year old 9th grader in Paint Branch High School, Maryland, USA.

Rajna has accompanied Flute Shashank and Sikkil Gurucharan. Along with her father Dr. P. K. Swaminathan, she has accompanied high caliber artists such as Dr. N. Ramani, Sikkil Mala Chandrasekhar, Rudrapatnam Brothers, Charumathi Ramachandran, and won their praise.

During Fall 2004, Rajna toured USA along with her illustrious Guru and performed for one piece on Mrudangam with Sri Sivaraman playing on Kanjira and encouraging her. She is the first and only female percussionist to share the stage with the Maestro. Sri Sivaraman presented her to the Maryland audience for a full two hour concert debut under the auspices of the Chinmaya Mission, Maryland on October 9th, 2004, with Sri Somayajulu on Jalatharangam, Sri Nagai Sriram on Violin and Sri E. M. Subramaniam on Ghatam.

Rajna performed in two concerts, at the prestigious Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana Festival 2005, accompanying USA based young artistes, and was specially spotlighted by JayaTV during their Chennai broadcast of the festival. Rajna debuted in Chennai during Summer 2005 and performed in six concerts, where she received great approbation from dignitaries and musicians such as Mrs. Y.G. Parthasarathy, Sri Nalli Kuppuswamy Chetty, Sri Doordarshan Natarajan, Sri Madurai G. S. Mani, Prof. T. R. Subramaniam, Sri Trichur V. Ramachandran, Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan, Sri Trichur Narendran, Sri J. Vaidyanathan, and many others.

Rajna had a very successful Chennai music season December 2005. She performed in 14 concerts. During Carnatica’s New Year’s eve bash at the Music Academy, Rajna played for one song with Bombay Sisters Saroja & Lalitha. She won the praise of several high caliber musicians including Sri T. K. Govinda Rao, Sri R. K. Srikantan, Sri T. N. Krishnan, Sri Ravikiran and Malladi Brothers.

Rajna also performs Mrudangam for Dance programs, most notably the grand Kuchipudi dance ballet, Bharata Sambhavam, held at Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater on April 17th, 2004.

Rajna is the youngest and one of only a handful of female Mrudangam/percussion artistes in the world. In addition to Mrudangam, Rajna plays piano and has learned Bharathanatyam for some years.