SIFAS fest

Singapore Fine Arts Society is hosting a music fest at the Tattvaloka Auditorium from Dec.27 to 31.

Held in association with Carnaticradio.com,, this is the first time that SIFAS is holding a fest here. It features a mix of students who attend SIFAS’ school, gurus who have taught at SIFAS and Chennaibased artistes who have performed under its banner.

So you have Yalpanam Karunakaran who is now based in Colombo to Sikkil Mala Chandrasekar, from young Sriram and Ganesh who study at SIFAS’ academy to Mylai Sargurunathan who is the odhuvar at Sri Kapali Temple, Mylapore and specializes in pann isai, who will perform after the inauguration on Monday.

Admission is open to all. The venue is located on Eldams Road, Alwarpet.

The contacts - Niranjan - 9952199899, Kasinathan - 8925221429

Chennaiyil Thiruvaiyaru

'Lakshman Shruthi', a music company is hosting the hugely promoted Chennaiyil Thiruvaiyaru 2010 edition's season 6 at Kamarajar Arangam in Teynampet.

Inaugurated on December 18, the event was followed by the rendering of pancharatna krithis under the leadership of P. S. Narayanaswamy There are concerts every day and they are ticketed.

This show, like the concert series promoted by Maximum Media that are shot for telecast on Jaya TV have been big hit with the artistes. The publicity and promotionals are huge and they also reach to the common man.

In some ways, they too popularize Carnatic music.

Jayanthi Kumaresh and Abhishek Raguram present special event

-- Reported by R. Revathi

Here is an event on Sunday afternoon you may want to surely check out.

It features Jayanthi Kumaresh and Abhishek Raguram at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha.

Says Jayanthi "There are lec-dems that have a concept, kathakalakshepams with mythological stories as their theme and regular music concerts. But, the one we will be presenting this year is different. It is a contemporary story.".

She has penned the story for the event 'Sri Ragam - Story in concert.'

Along with her are, Abhishek Raghuram, a young singer and Jayanthi's nephew, M. D. Pallavi, a Hindustani singer and Kannada playback singer on the vocals, while Jayanthi will be narrating the story and play veena.

"The story is about how a musician is born, how his or her career is shaped, their priorities in life and what time he or she retires and makes way for the next generation to be on the concert dais," Jayanthi adds.

The three musicians have been working on the script, rehearsing on the vocals and the instruments for the past three months.

Why have they titled it 'Sri Ragam'? Jayanthi feels 'Sri' is an auspicious word to begin anything and Sri Ragam is the raga in which the last of the Thyagaraja's Ghana Raga Pancharatnas is set.

"Sri is the beginning and the end and again beginning of a new generation. It is also the Sanskrit word for wealth. In this event, we highlight the wealth of knowledge and experience that are not materialistic."

Accompanying the trio are Pramath Kiran on the percussion and Shadroch Solomon on the keyboard.

The event is scheduled on Dec. 19 at 4.30 pm at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha main hall, T. Nagar.

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Suswara's Fest

Suswara academy for music and dance opened its fest at Gokhale Sastri Hall, Luz on Friday with an awards ceremony.

Photo shows R K Moorthi of Sri Thyaga Brahma Gana Sabha, the main guest with awardees - vocalist Charumathi Ramachandran, Mohiniattam dancer Neena Prasad, Aditya Prasaa, SD of All India Radio, Vijayawada. Also seen is Dr. Lokanandha Sarma, Suswara founder and others of the acade.

Dr. B M Sundaram felicitated the artistes.

Music festival at Adyar Temple campus

Valayapatti Kaashyap Naadhalaya will hold its 16th year music festival at Kanchi Maha Swami Ananta Mandapam in Gandhi Nagar, Adyar ( south Chennai) from Dec.19 to 27.

Justice AR. Lakshmanan will inaugurate the festival. Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, chairman, ISRO will preside over the function on Dec.19 at 4 p.m.

This will be followed by award function and the vocal concert of Aruna Sairam will be held at 7 p.m. Concerts are held here every day. The hall is inside the Sri Padmanabhaswami Temple.

Ph: 98400 45859 for more info.

Namasankeerthana Tarangams Fest

Sri Narayna Tirtha Swamigal Trust presents its 14th Mini Music Festival of Namasankeerthana Tarangams of Pujyasri Narayana Tirtha at Sringeri Pravachana Mandiram, R A Puram which will be inaugurated on Friday, December 17 at 3.45 p.m.

A recital by Dr. Pantula Rama at 6.30 p.m and a musical discourse by T Vijay Krishna Bhagavathar and T Balaji Bhagavathar at 8.30 p.m. follow.

On December 18 and 19 there are music programmes, Tarangam singing and Unchavruthi/Radha Kalyanam.

For the programme schedule call 044-2493 6671.

Music Students of Kerala Face-to-face with the Greats

Reported by KutcheriBuzz

This is a truly great initiative.

The step taken by the Government of Kerala to enable students of music at the state-run colleges to be in the middle of the famed December season in Chennai.

On Monday, December 6 morning, the hosts, hosting such an event for the second year, did not let the pounding rain discourage their ambitious plan.

They had invited all the Sangita Kalanidhi awardees living to be present at the launch of their second festival. They got 12 of them to be present - a huge achievement.

M S Gopalakrishnan, Umayalpuram Sivaraman, T K Murthy, T N Krishnan, T V Sankaranarayanan, T N Seshagopalan, A K C Natarajan, N. Ramani, M Chandrasekaran, R K Srikantan, R. Vedavalli and Sikkil Neela. They were all there on stage at the Kasturi Srinivasan hall in The Music Academy campus.

Kerala's education minister M A Baby, known for his support of the arts was present along with The Academy head, N. Murali as were about 100 students from the three colleges in Kerala - from Chembai Memorial Music College in Palakkad, Sri Swati Thirunal College of Music, Thiruvananthapuram and RLV College of Music and Fine Arts, Tripunithura.

Each maestro on stage was decorated and time was provided to all the Kerala students to pay their respects to the stalwarts and have keepsake photos taken.

Umayalpuram Sivaraman said that he had suggested to the state that having the Kerala students in Chennai during the season would give them a great exposure. He was happy this had come about.

Each college group will present a recital through this 4-day fest at this venue. Every evening, stalwarts will perform and this will allow the students to experience them first hand.

This year, students who attend the course of Advanced Carnatic music run by The Academy will also present a concert. Artistes like Ravi Kiran and T V Gopalakrishnan are giving lec-dems too.

What an opportunity!

Prof. M. Balasubramoniam is the convenor of this event. Call 0-94470-14885.