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Sri Rama Lalitha Kala Mandira has been doing yeoman service since 1955 in the field of

Carnatic and Hindustani music. Its 57th annual festival was inaugurated on 1st January 2012 in its own concert hall. The celebrations, spread over January, featured Carnatic vocal concerts by talented musicians like Aishwarya Shankar, Prince Rama Varma, D.B. Ashwin, Vani Satish, Ramakrishnan Murthy, Sandeep Narayan, Adoor Sudarshan, N.R. Prashanth, V. Vijay Arun (C-guitar), and L.V. Mukund (C-flute).

The main festival – Spring Music Festival – began on 1st February at the Bangalore Gayana Samaja hall. Bombay Jayashri Ramnath inaugurated the festival by lighting the lamp. The concert series showcasing some of the best talent is widely publicised and is “open to all”. Three-hour concerts are organized and the enthusiastic rasika looks forward to the festival year after year.

Bombay Jayashri presented a memorable concert to a packed audience. H.N. Bhaskar, Patri Satish Kumar, and Anirudh Athreya

SRI RAMA LALITHA KALA MANDIRADelightful concerts mark 57th year event

Visakha Hari

Sanjay Subrahmanyan

embellished the concert. Young Abhishek Raghuram who has a big fan following in the city regaled the audience with able support from Akkarai Subbalakshmi, Anantha R. Krishnan and G. Guruprasanna. The enthusiastic response to T.M. Krishna’s concert was to be seen to be believed. Embar Kannan, K. Arun Prakash and B.S. Purushothaman responded in an excellent manner to Krishna’s brilliant recital.

In future the organisers need to look for additional space – such was the response for Visakha Hari’s musical discourse Meera Bai Charitram. She held the audience spellbound, ably assisted by Padma Shankar, H.S. Sudhindra and Udayraj Karpoor. The mellifluous flow of the Malladi Brothers’ concert for close to four hours was special, well supported by Embar S. Kannan, Neyveli Narayanan and G. Omkar Rao. Dr. R.N. Sreelatha presented a scholarly concert, with excellent support from V. Nalina Mohan, Anoor Ananthakrishna Sharma and V.S. Ramesh. S. Sowmya’s presentation on allied raga-s,

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supported by vocalists K. Gayathri, Vidya Kalyanaraman, K. Bharat Sundar, Ramakrishnan Murthy and accompanists M. Narmada, Poongulam Subramanyam and K.V. Gopalakrishnan was educative, a first by Sowmya in Bangalore. Sudha Ragunathan’s charisma continues to flow – the audience was bowled over by her singing for over three and a half hours. She was accompanied with good understanding by Embar S. Kannan, Neyveli Skanda Subramanyan and R. Raman. The violin duet by Mysore M. Nagaraj and Mysore M. Manjunath, accompanied by Tiruvarur Bhaktavatsalam and Giridhar Udupa, was a high voltage concert. The surprise package was the beautiful Bharatanatyam performance by dancer-actor Lakshmi Gopalaswamy. Sanjay Subrahmanyan’s recital was enthralling, with veterans Nagai Muralidharan and Mannargudi Eswaran, and morsing artist B. Rajashekar contributing to the success of his delightful concert.

The concluding concert of the 12-day series by Ranjani and Gayatri was a memorable event, one of their best in recent times. Charumathi Raghuraman, Manoj Siva and G.S. Ramanujam enhanced the concert.

Tiru Swamiji honouring R.K. Srikantan with the title Sangeeta Vedanta Dhurina, a cash award of Rs. 1,00,000 and a silver medal

On 4th March Sri Rama Lalitha Kala Mandira celebrated its 1250th programme and the 50th death anniversary of its founder the late G. Vedanta Iyengar. Vidwan R.K. Srikantan was conferred the title Sangeeta Vedanta Dhurina along with a cash award of one lakh rupees

and a silver medal, by the Director of Sri Krishna Kalakshetra, ISKCON. The veteran vidwan and his son Prof. R.S. Ramakanth, presented a delightful concert accompanied by H.K. Venkataram, Srimushnam V. Rajarao and H.S. Sudhindra.

A CORRESPONDENT

(News & Notes continued on p. 53)