Upcoming Programs

Date:

Saturday, August 16th 2008

Time:

2:00 PM to 4:00 PM

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.

Junior Concert:	2.00 PM - 2.45 PM	Mekala (Vocal) Nagaraj Mandya (Violin) Vignesh Venkataraman (Mridangam)
Junior Concert:	3.00 PM - 3.45 PM	Deepika Kishore (vocal) Ramprasad (violin) Santosh Karuhatty (Mridangam)

Mekala (Vocal)

Mekala started her formal training in vocal Carnatic music at the age of 8 under the tutelage of guru Smt. Asha Ramesh, Artistic Director, Ragamalika School of Music. She has sung at various programs by Ragamalika and SIFA. During the last two years Mekala has also given solo recitals at Nandalala Mission, Badarikashrama, Livermore Temple and community programs. Mekala also sings Western Classical, Broadway and Popular music.

She is the Founder and President of Dames and Fellas A Capella at UC Davis and is a member of the Center Stage Singers in Fremont. Mekala is a student of Bharatanatyam under Smt. Indumathy Ganesh, Artistic Director, Nrithyollasa Dance Academy. She performed her Arangetram in 2006 and in 2007, together with Nrithyollasa dancers, won an award at the New Prague International dance festival, Czech Republic.

Mekala is a Junior at UC Davis pursuing a degree in Neurobiology. She holds a Biotechnology Program Assistantship at the UC Davis School of Medicine and is at present doing a summer internship at Dr. Van Hoven's Molecular Biology Laboratory at San Jose State. Mekala has also received the Presidential Award for Educational Excellence and the Bank of America Plaque of Achievement for the Fine Arts.

Nagaraj Mandya (Violin)

Nagaraj started his music education more than 10 years ago at the Vijaya College of Music, Bangalore, India. He continued his advanced music education under Sangeetha Kalarathna Prof. H.V. Krishnamurthy, Principal of the Vijaya College of Music and his son, Ganakalashree Sri. H.K. Venkatram. Nagaraj is currently furthering his musical interests with the bay area's leading musician Smt. Asha Ramesh.

Nagaraj has accompanied artists both in India and in the USA. Along with his guru, Sri. H.K. Venkatram, Nagaraj has developed multi-media presentations on the "Life and Times of Sri Muthuswami Dikshithar", "Panchabhutha krithis of Sri Muthuswami Dikshithar" and "Navagraha krithis of Sri Muthuswami Dikshithar". He has also co-authored a multi-media CD on Saint Thyagaraja's Pancharathna krithis.

Vignesh Venkataraman (Mridangam)

Vignesh, a 9th grader at Monta Vista High School, Cupertino, CA is a mridangam artist hailing from Umayalpuram Sri. K. Sivaraman's school. Vignesh was initiated into playing Mridangam by Sri. Anand Iyer, also from the same school. For the past 4 years, Vignesh has been traveling to India every summer undergoing advanced training under the tutelage of Umayalpuram Sri. K. Sivaraman.

Vignesh has been accompanying various artists in Carnatic concerts in the San Francisco Bay area and has received accolades from local critics. He is a frequent performer at Nandalala Mission concerts. He has performed at Thyagaraja, Annamacharya and Swathi Tirunal Aradhanas. Vignesh is also learning vocal carnatic music from Smt. Meena Kodhandaraman, a disciple of Sri. M.S. Anantharaman, and recently from the violin maestro Sri. R.K. Shriramkumar. Vignesh has participated in mridangam and vocal competitions for the past 3 years at the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana festival and has won several prizes in both categories.

Besides music, Vignesh is an avid sports fan and football is his most favorite sport. He is training to be the quarterback of his high school football team.

Deepika Kishore (vocal)

Deepika Kishore is the grand-daughter of Sangeetha Kalanidhi Shri T.K. Govinda Rao. She has been learning music from her mother Smt. Padmaja Kishore since her childhood and has participated in Thyagaraja aradhana and Purandara dasa aradhana in various places in the Bay Area. She was part of the group that won 1st place in the OSAAT music competition in the senior category this February. She has a special interest in learning languages and knows 6 Indian languages. Deepika is a valedictorian in her high school and will be a freshman in UC Berkeley this fall majoring in molecular and cell biology.

Ramprasad (violin)

Ramprasad started learning violin during his school days from Sri Narasimhulu in Chennai. He then took advanced lessons from Smt. Vijaya Prabhakar in Phoenix and Sri L. Arvind in Sunnyvale. He has performed in several music programmes in the bay area, and was part of a 25-violin ensemble that performed during the Music season in Chennai. Ramprasad is a hardware engineer and works in a high technology firm in San Jose.

Santosh Karuhatty (Mridangam)

Santhosh Karuhatty is currently in bay area, working at IBM. He graduated from California State University, Chico with a Masters degree in Computer Science. Orignally from Mysore, he has learnt mridangam from Belakvadi Rangaswami Iyengar Sridhar. He further continued with Shivashankar an AIR artist at Mysore. Santhosh started playing mridangam from the age of 10 and has accompanied artists in India. He has also accompanied artists in bay area and trying to improve on it.

LOTUS - LOcal Talent UnderScored