april 2019 concerts and Late Sri Hemmige D Varadarajan

Vandhana Chari (Violin)

Vandana is part of the Nadalahari Music school has been learning violin under the Dr.Saravanapriyan Sriraman for the past 7 years.

Vandana learns Carnatic vocal music from Srimathi Geetha Raja and also learns western violin from Ms.Sharon Hendee as part of the Dominican Church, Fremont for 4 years now. She participates in local and school orchestra.

She is a 11th grader from Mission San Jose High School, Fremont.

Vandana recently in her quest to bring music and technology together designed “Spectune” a LED sound, frequency reactive violin bow that was presented at Maker Faire and Stanford University recently.

Srihari Srinivasan (mridangam)

Srihari Srinivasan is Sophomore in Dublin High School. He has been playing mridangam for a total of 7 years. Srihari has been learning under Trivandrum V. Balaji, disciple of Padmashri Palghat Raghu for more than 3 years. He was initially learning from Ramesh Srinivasan, disciple of Vellore Ramabhadran. Srihari has participated in many competitions. He received 1st place in Cleveland Music Competition 2017 for Junior Thani Avarthanam. He also received a special prize in Sangeeth Samrat for the Junior Mridangam competition and 3rd place for a group competition.

Niranjan Krishna started learning Carnatic Music at the age of 8. He started learning bhajans and songs from his mother, Smt Chandra Ravichandran, and his grandmother, Smt Padma Srinivasan. He then started his music classes from Smt Poomagal Devanathan and continued his lessons from Prof.K.Sivaramakrishnan, a senior vidwan and renowed teacher from Coimbatore, for about 12 years. He has been continuing his advanced lessons from Vidwan Sri.N.Vijay Siva since 2012. He has performed at sabhas in Chennai including Naada Inbam, Kapali Fine Arts, and Vipanchee trust. He was selected for performing at Music Academy for Spirit of Youth festival during the year 2014. He has participated and won prizes from music competitions including at Rasika Ranjana Sabha , Trichy and Rajalakshmi Fine Arts, Coimbatore.He has the blessing to continue providing vocal accompaniment to his guru, Sri.N.Vijay Siva at various sabhas in Chennai and USA . He also had the opportunity to learn Hindustani music from Padmasri Hariharan and his guru Pandit Akbar Khan for 1 year. He is very thankful to his wife , his parents , his sister and his amazing family and friends for constantly supporting and motivating his interest to pursue and practice this art form.

Keshavan Narayanan Srivatsan (Violin) is a Carnatic vocalist and violinist, belonging to the Legendary Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar & Palghat K.V. Narayanaswamy Lineage. He is an accomplished vocalist and a concert artist, who has been training in vocal music under his parents Smt. Subhapriya K. Srivatsan and Hemmige Sri V. Srivatsan since a very young age. Keshavan is a concert violin artist who is privileged to be under his father’s tutelege. Keshavan has also had the rare privilege of learning with illustrious musicians such as Vidushi Smt. Padma Narayanaswamy, his Parama-guru-pathni, and Vidushi Smt. Jayalakshmi Santhanam. Keshavan is a 12th grader at Branham High School.

Karthik Gopalratnam (Mridangam)

Karthik Gopalratnam is well known to Bay Area music lovers as a mrdangam artist, Karthik has had extensive training in vocal music as well. He was first taught by his mother Girija Gopalratnam, and then her guru Neela Ramgopal of Bangalore. After moving to the US he was privileged to come under the tutelage of Sreevidhya Chandramouli, a descendant of the illustrious Karaikudi Veena tradition, and whose guidance has been instrumental in moulding Karthik's music. Karthik has also benefited by his association with the many excellent musicians of the Bay Area.