Upcoming Program

Date:

Saturday, July 28th 2007

Time:

3:00 PM to 5:15PM

Location:

Sanathana Dharma Kendra

Address:

897 Kifer Road, Suite 1, (inside RTS Building Complex), Sunnyvale, CA 94086

Phone:

(408) 481-9242

Map :

Map of 897 Kifer Rd, Sunnyvale, CA 94086-5205

These are free events. All are welcome.
Please feel free to spread this message to your friends and relatives.

Intermediate Level Program 1:	3.00 PM - 4.15 PM	Karthik Lakshminarayanan (Violin) Sriram Raghavan (Mridangam) Karthik Gopalratnam (Khanjira)
Junior Level Program 2:	4.30 PM - 5.15 PM	Lalli Venkatakrishnan (Vocal) Varun Sundar (Violin) Balaji Mahadevan (Mridangam)

Karthik Lakshminarayanan (Violin)

Karthik Lakshminarayanan has been an aspiring musician since a very young age. After learning basics from Smt. Sivakami Narayanan, Karthik underwent further training in violin from Smt. Radha Narayanan. Recently, he has received advanced training from Sri. Mullaivasal Chandramouli.

For the past five years, Karthik has been fortunate to receive expert guidance from veteran vidushi Smt. Suguna Purushothaman. Karthik received his PhD in Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2007.

Sriram Raghavan (Mridangam)

Sriram Raghavan was introduced to Carnatic music at a very early age by his father Sri. P.S.Raghavan, himself an accomplished mridangist. Sriram had his initial lessons in mridhangam from Shri. P.S.Srinivasan, a senior disciple of Shri Palghat Mani Iyer. Since the age of thirteen, he underwent advanced training under Padmashri Shri Palghat Raghu.

Sriram has played in most of the major sabhas in Chennai including the Music Academy, Tamizh Isai Sangam, Krishna Gana Sabha, Bharath Kalachar, and Nadopasana. Since 1998, he has been a resident of the San Francisco Bay area, where he regularly accompanies leading local artists.

Karthik Gopalratnam (Khanjira)

Karthik started learning the art of playing the Mridangam at the age of 9, from renowned Vidwan Sri H.S.Sudhindra, a respected teacher and prominent artiste in Bangalore. Karthik has also learnt vocal Carnatic music from his mother Smt. Girija Gopalratnam, and was later privileged to come under the guidance of Vidushi Smt. Sreevidhya Chandramouli, a renowned Veena artiste and descendant of the illustrious Karaikudi Veenai tradition. Vidushi Sreevidhya's artistic and aesthetic guidance have been instrumental in moulding Karthik's growth as a musician - both as a Mridangist as well as a vocalist.

Karthik has given numerous performances in Bangalore, Seattle and in the Bay Area and on rare occasions moonlights as a Kanjira player as well.

Lalli Venkatakrishnan (Vocal)

Lalli Venkatakrishnan is a student of Smt. Geetha Iyer. Geetha graduated with a Master’s Degree in Carnatic Music under the guidance of Professor K. Omanakutty and Professor G. Seethalakshmi of the Swati Tirunal Sangeeta Academy. She has performed several times on All India Radio and Doordarshan, Trivandrum. She founded Geetha Vidyalaya in Fremont, where she teaches vocal singing and veena.

Lalli has been learning Carnatic music for eight years. She is going to be a sophomore at Irvington High School in Fremont.

Lalli plays the trumpet in her school Symphonic band and is part of the junior varsity volleyball team. She is an active participant in the school speech and debate club and also learns Bharathanatyam dance.

Varun Sundar (Violin)

Varun Sundar is a student of the Trinity Center of Music run by Smt. Anuradha Sridhar, a renowned Bay Area musician and teacher, and the daughter of Srimathi Brahmanandam of the illustrious Lalgudi family of musicians. Smt. Anuradha Sridhar's drive for perfection, her vast knowledge and her expectations of a demanding practice regimen nurture students of outstanding capability.

Varun Sundar has been learning Violin from Smt. Anuradha Sridhar since 2002. Varun has performed in musical festivals such as the Thyagaraja Aradhana for SIFA and Ramanavami Festival in Badhrikashrima. He has won prizes in the Cleveland Thygaraja Aradhana. Recently, he was awarded 1st prize in Violin Krithi and special prize for raga alapana in Cleveland Aradhana 2007 festival. He performed his first solo concert in July 2006 for Nandalala Mission. Varun has also learned Western violin for six years and also performed in the South Bay Youth Orchestra. He enjoys writing comedy scripts and acting in drama productions and competing in speech competitions.

Varun will be a sophomore this fall at University of Illinois –Urbana Champaign majoring in Information Systems and Computer Science.

Balaji Mahadevan (Mridangam)

Balaji Mahadevan has been playing Mridhangam since age 12. His initial training was from Shri K.S.S.Mani (Chennai ) for 8 years. He continued to learn from Shri Madhu Sudhanan, Chennai (disciple of Shri Karikudi Mani).

Balaji has accompanied many leading artists in chennai and in US and has also played for many cassette / CD recordings and TV shows and he has been accompanying for various dance arangetrams and dance ballets. Balaji Mahadevan is a graded artist from All India radio, Chennai. He is also skilled in playing Tabla, Dhol, Thavil, khol and Drums.

He is currently working as Senior Database Administrator at Touchpoint Inc, Emeryville.

LOTUS - LOcal Talent UnderScored