Youth from North Carolina raise $10000 for Sankara Netralaya

[suma]

On Sept 5, 2010, youth from North Carolina hosted a carnatic music event and raised $10000 for Sankara Netralaya. The event was a huge success. I went into that thinking that I might end up getting a head ache after a few hours after listening to some amateaur artists.

However, the youth worked with some adults in that area, and picked some of the best youth talent from USA and gave them 40 min slots for solo for highly advanced group with accompaniments, 15 mts for a little lower level and 5 min for local groups. They invited some youth from other places to perform.

Overall, they picked good youth artists and in the process the whole day was filled with pleasant music. Accompanists also got an opportunity to play for good talent.

A thought then came by.... people travel to india every year and spend a lot of money on air tickets etc to get exposure singing and/or playing for good talent. If organizers in USA can team up and attract this kind of talent, they would be saving parents of talented youth thousands of dollars spent on air tickets. No senior or name brand artist was invited. The only expense was a hall that was discounted as the participants anyways bought food and drinks all day from the banqet hall owners.

Looking forward for more of such events.

[suma]

All the funds raised went to Sankara Netralaya $10,000

[appu]

Hello Suma,

Congrats to this young lad. Please provide some details about the event including the name of this youngster who organized the event. A detailed report would be appreciated.

[cienu]

Nice to hear about this Suma . My congratulations to the organisers and the budding artistes.

[arasi]

Good initiative and organizing of an event for a good cause by a youngster who was given plenty of help too, no doubt.
Yes, would like to hear more about this inspired young person and the team workers.

[mohan]

Well done to the organisers. A similar event (bharatantayam program) for another Indian charity was held in Sydney a couple of weeks ago and they raised around $A12,000.

I have noticed the best way to raise funds through a cultural program is to have lots of kids involved. There are limited costs involved (auditorium is the major expense) and participants' family and friends tend to buy tickets. Of course, the show must have a degree of quality and the cause should be a reputable one.

Organising concerts featuring artistes from India are rarely money making ventures!

[suma]

A student of carnatic music and a new comer to the area, wanted to have a concert of himself and his friends (group concert of just songs like utsava sampradaya krithis without much of improvisations). He approached the local organization and requested for a concert for himself and his friends. His friend's uncle is the president of sankara netralaya and he wanted to do this as a fund raising concert.

The organization told him that he himself is new to the area and has never performed solo anywhere. With that as the background it would be very difficult to get any audience.

However, the thought of helping sankara netralaya was well recieved. So the parents of budding artists in that area proposed, why not include everyone and call it a youth event. Let all the selected budding artists be given slots throughout the day and you and your group can perform in the night.

So, they researched to see who would fit the category of youth and be a budding artist and invited a few of them. There was vocal, violin (Solo and accompaniment), and mridangam. The two invited violin artists also got their own solo slots for 40 mts.

Additionally, they invited music teachers from their state and neighbouring states and told them to only send good students and have them perform as a group.

So, they started the program and spilt it into 4 quarters. The first three quarters had a group school program, individual 40 mt, 15 mt and 5 min program. So, the hall was always with people until the last quarter which was the original proposer's program. By then since the people where there from morning, only the parents of the performers and organizers were left with a hand full of others.

Throughout the day they had a screen displaying how much they collected so far and the target was at $10,000. So as and when the groups in their relevant quarters were performing, they were also sponsoring the program.

They ordered lunch and dinner boxes, snack, tea and coffee and so every one would just buy there and eat.

The singers, the violinists and the mridangists that were involved in the 40 mt slots were extraordinarily good. One person, a student of Hyd brothers sang very well, however, he did not know how to do alapana and pick up after thani. So, without making a big deal about it, he told his accompanist to do the alapana and he moved on to the song. He told the accompanist to tell him when the thani would be over and he picked up when they signalled him. For the audience, they just cared for pleasant music. So, this 2nd year enginereeing student sang his part well and that's all they cared about.

Other sets of artists in the 40 mt slots did very well. A fellow member's children took subha pantuvarali as their main and did a great job.

Overall, it was a great day for a great cause.

[suma]

Some of the selected 40 mt performers were students of some well known names in carnatic music:
OST
Suguna Puroshottamam
Suguna Varadachari
A. Kanyakumari
Hyderabad Brothers
Subhash Chandran
Kalidas

Sandeep Bharadwaj and Kamal Kiran gave violin solo and accompaniment for all.

Arjun Raghavan and Nannu L. Subramaniam gave mridangam support for all.

The singers were Karthikeyan Ardhanareeswaran, Deepthi Shroff, Anirudh, Malavi and Maya Ravindran and got their 40 mt slots.
Sandeep Bharadwaj and Kamal Kiran got their individual 40 mt solo slots for this program.

[arasi]

What a remarkable day!
Congratulations and best wishes to all the youngsters. What could be better, an event of the kids, by the kids and for the kids--with some help from the parents, of course.
Here's proof that CM has hopes for a healthy future--since the young ones, even living thousands of miles away from Chennai are inspired. What's more, a charity benefits too!
Chennai kids, take note. Talk sponsors into events to benefit a charity AND do your bit for CM! After all, you live in the very capitol of CM.

[tkb]

suma
Congrats to one all involved and in particular the Youth!

mohan
Congrats to people in Sydney too.

These incidents only prove that all certain done Carnatic Music and dance are in the safe hands of the Youth

[ajit]

I thought Shashank and Shruthi performed on the flute - can anyone confirm?

ajit

[suma]

Here is the schedule:

http://ncycac.webs.com/schedule.htm

[suma]

I recieved email requests to post a recording or two. Here you go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqhpEBHdWDg