Upcoming Program

Date:

Saturday, October 20th 2007

Time:

2:00 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.

Junior Level Concert 1:	2.00 PM - 2.45 PM	Sangeetha Sampath (Vocal) Pudhuma Bharathi Karunakaran (Vocal) Smita Krishna (Vocal) Mahalingam Koushik (Tabla)
Junior Level Concert 2:	3.00 PM - 3.45 PM	Sandhya Chandrasekaran (Vocal) Nagaraj Mandya (Violin) Balaji Mahadevan (Mridangam)
Junior Level Concert 3	4.00 PM - 5.15 PM	Sarika Ramakrishnan (Vocal)

Sangeetha Sampath (Vocal)

Sangeetha started learning music at a young age with Guru Shri Vaigal. S. Gnanaskandan and continues to render carnatic vocal music performances at various places in Chennai. She has two albums - Dasavatharam songs composed and tuned by her Guru and 'RagaPravaham' - a collection of Ragamalikas rendered with her sister, Lavanya, and released by Carnatica Inc. An avid enthusiast of Indian classical music, Sangeetha teaches music in the bay area and has performed at Lotus in 2004. An MBA graduate of Santa Clara University, Sangeetha lives in San Jose with her husband Sairam and infant son Pranav.

Pudhuma Bharathi Karunakaran (Vocal)

Pudhuma Bharathi received her vocal training from Mrs. Saraswathi Ranganathan. An active member of Spicmacay at Texas A&M University, Pudhuma has given vocal support for Bharatnatyam arangetrams and sung at Spicmacay-Baithaks in Texas. Pudhuma is an architect by profession and works in Los Angeles.

Smita Krishna (Vocal)

Smita received her vocal training from Mrs. Saraswathi Ranganathan and later trained under Shri T.G. Badrinarayanan, disciple of late Shri DK Jayaraman. An electronics engineer from Madras University, Smita lives in San Jose with her husband Krishna.

Mahalingam Koushik (Tabla)

Mahalingam Koushik trained on the tabla under Guru Sri K Duraiswami. He has performed at concerts and shows in and around Albany, NY. Mahalingam is a hardware engineer at Maxim in San Jose.

Sandhya Chandrasekaran (Vocal)

Sandhya Chandrasekaran has been learning Carnatic vocal music for the past nine years from Smt. Latha Sriram, Artistic Director of Sri Lalitha Gana Vidyalaya. She has performed in almost all of her music school productions since 1998, the latest one being Guru Vandhanam in March 2007 which is coincidentally the 15th Anniversary production for her music school.

In addition, Sandhya has performed on various occasions like Trinities Day (hosted by her music school), Thyagaraja Day at SIFA, Annamacharya Day at Livermore, Dikshithar Day hosted by LOTUS and at various temples & Badrikashrama in the Bay Area. She has rendered three solo House concerts, one at Chennai India in 2005 in the presence of highly acclaimed Bombay Sisters, and the other two at Fremont CA. She had opportunities to perform Solo concerts along with accompanists during her cousin’s marriage at Chennai during Aug 2006 and at Nandalala in the Bay Area earlier this year.

Sandhya is a junior at Mission San Jose High School. In addition to Carnatic music, she learns Bharathanatyam and piano. This is Sandhya’s first solo concert performance at LOTUS.

Nagaraj Mandya (Violin)

Nagaraj started his music education at Vijaya College of Music, Bangalore, India 10 years back. He continued his advanced music education under Sangeetha Kalarathna Prof.H.V.Krishnamurthy, and his sons, Sri H.K.Raghavendra and 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 many accomplished artists in India and USA. He has played at prestigious sabhas like the Bangalore Gayana Samaja, Karnataka Ganakala Parishath, Ananya, Udupi Sri Krishna Mutt, Sri Ramaseva Mandali.Alongwith 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 assisted his guru in the authoring of a multi-media CD on Saint Thyagaraja's Pancharathna krithis.

Balaji Mahadevan (Mirudangam)

Balaji Mahadevan has been playing mridangam 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. Balaji Mahadevan is a graded artist from All India radio, Chennai. He is also skilled in playing the tabla, dhol, thavil, khol and the drums.
An M.Tech graduate from University of Roorkee, Balaji currently works as a Senior Database Administrator at Touchpoint Inc, in Emeryville.

Sarika Ramakrishnan (Vocal)

Sarika Ramakrishnan has been learning Carnatic music for the past seven years. She has studied under Smt. Asha Ramesh in the Bay Area, and thereafter from Smt.Shanti Sriram in Sacramento and Smt. Raji Gopalakrishnan (India). She has participated at many local events such as Thyagaraja Day, Dikshitar Day, etc.

Sarika is also training in Bharathanatyam and has an Arangetram scheduled for summer 2008. She is currently a freshman in the International Baccalaureate program at Mira Loma High school. This is her 1st solo performance.

LOTUS - LOcal Talent UnderScored