Epic Choir performs at Cleveland Thiagaraja Festival

Cleveland Thiagraja Festival plays the epic songs. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Outside the transit gate at Salt Lake City Airport, 50 -year -old marketing professional Bhardwaj was trying to perfect Laxminarayanan GamkaAn adornment applied to notes in Karnataka music. His 12 -year -old daughter, Mahthi, corrected him. After moments, a group of people waiting to join the same flight, sings a Karnataka Kriti,

Soon, a mini Cutchry Unfolded, thinking about the style of music with the curious audience.

This is a scene from mid -April this year, when Bhardwaj and Mahthi, along with many other Karnataka students, were on their way to the Cleveland Thiagraja Festival. The first was celebrated in 1978, it is now considered the largest Indian classical music festival outside India.

At the festival, this group of Bay Area joined many other small groups, which practiced a single set of songs. Together, they came to perform for a contingent of coral artists, signature of the epic songs, Chennai -based Sishyakulam.

The performance of this year was over 250 artists, aged between five and 60 years, sharing a platform in front of audiences of over 2,000, in an hour-and-an hour and a half hour, which is probably the largest Indian musical music ever.

“It was like a music holiday,” Bharadhavj said on a call, “There is an energy when we all sing together that cannot be described in words. For us, the real display, as much as the journey was very rewarded for it.” He was referring to the leading months for the incident, when many of their students, including Carnatic music gurus, Hari Devnath, Akila Iyer and Kasturi Shivkumar, arrived in the Gulf region to participate in the effort.

Cleveland Thiagraja Festival plays the epic songs. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

To promote Indian classical arts, an organization established by Neyveli R Santhanagopalan, determined by Shishyakulam, was designed to promote a culture to the epic songs, where children from all over America dedicate hundreds of hours to learning Indian classical music.

“It gives these students grow up music and exposes them to songs beyond traditional CritisThey also learn harmony and cords, ”said composer Shankar Santhanagopalan, CEO of Sishyakulam, and son of Neyveli Santhanagopalan, the recipient of Sangita Kalanidhi.

track record

All these music action appeared in the Volstein Center, which usually hosts the basketball event. More than 250 students demonstrated six compositions prescribed by Santhanagopalan to tune.

The final track set in Nalinakanthi raga, ‘Aradhanai’, was one of the main attractions of the performance, in which many children were clinging enthusiastically. “This is the theme song for the festival,” Shankar also said, who also operated the songs.

He said, “When I told people back home that I had organized a song, everyone was surprised. But the awards were rich, not only for the participants but also their parents. It helped to normalize the idea of ​​meaningful investment in art.”

It was exciting to play the role of Mridangam on such a big stage, for participants such as eight -year -old Rajagopal from New Jersey. He in fact learns from Patri Satish Kumar in Chennai. Sabarish said, “I made many friends and jammed with them as well,” Saburish said, whose father took him to Cleveland during a trip to an eight -hour car, during which he played Kanjira on some Karnataka tracks. “I also learned a lot of new music ideas,” he said.

This year’s song players have brought more than 250 classical music students and their families together, the expectation of a Similiyar event is increasing next year. Shankar has promised to be more ambitious in the coming years with this practice. He said, “We can try to bring more than 300 students and their families together, and perhaps also apply for an official record, such as Limca Book or Guinness. The boundary of the sky.”