The annual Cleveland Aradhana Festival, said to be the largest of its kind outside India is on from April 1 to 12 this year, with some high end recitals scheduled for the Easter weekend.

His Holiness Ganapati Sachchidananda Swami inaugurated the fest.

This year, the focus has been on the the maestro G N Balasubramaniam (GNB) whose birth centenary is being celebrated across the world, starting with events in Chennai held in late 2009.

GNB prime disciples like Trichur V Ramachandran was a special invitee at the aradhana - he was to present a GNB styled concert at this fest.

The annual awards were presented to a host of artistes on April 3 and they included Radha Vishwanathan, Sudha Ragunathan, D. Pasupathi, Charumathi Ramachandran Anuradha Sridhar for running the best music school and to Toronto Gowrisankar for being the best teacher in that part of the world.

All the top notch artistes are presenting concerts at this fest. The artistes include T N Seshagopalan, T M Krishna, Ravi Kiran, the Lalgudi duo and M. Balamuralikrishna. A few dance recitals are also scheduled including one by the Balagurunathans who, in a special production pay tribute to guru Krishnaveni Lakshmanan and the great MLV.

A number of American artistes are also on stage at this fest.

V V Sundaram and his team have, over the years broadbased the fest agenda with book releases, lec-dems and young artistes' recitals.

This year, young dancer Nandita Neroor who has been performing on stage after recovering from a deadly spinal injury, trained by guru Krishnakumari Narendran has been invited to perform.

All info is at www.aradhana.org