New England is blessed with so much talent and synergy among artists that sets them aside in a crowd.  This was evident to a great extent at the recent Thyagaraja Festival organized by the Bharathiya Sangeetha Sangham, Montreal, Canada. Since 1977, the Sangham has been conducting the aradhana which took an expanded form this year, thanks to the collaboration with the Music department of Concordia University, Montreal, along with the tireless efforts of many dedicated volunteers.        

The program started on Saturday, March 26^th with the welcome address and group singing of Pancharatna krithis as is the tradition. Following the group singing, compositions of Saint Thyagaraja were rendered soulfully by students of Music from the Concordia and McGill universities, conducted by Sri Vittal Ramamurthy, an accomplished and well-traveled musician. Harini Rajashekar from Maine, one of his youth disciples on the violin, along with Mahitha Bharadwaj from St. Louis on key board and Muralee from Toronto performed a group instrumental concert. Thyagaraja krithis from the individual and groups, paying their obeisance to the Saint, kept ringing around the F.C. Smith auditorium all through the day.

Saturday evening was welcome by a violin duo concert by Sri Vittal Ramamurthy and Smt Padma Shankar accompanied by Neyveli R Narayanan on the mridangam and Dr Ravi Balasubramanian from Connecticut on the ghatam. It was no surprise that their passion for their chosen art shone through the whole concert, immersing everyone in the bliss of Carnatic music.

Sakhi, a group of passionate dancers from Boston, opened up Sunday’s activities. This group is unique in the fact that the spouses of these dancers are musicians/artists who support them on and offstage. The group consisted of Poornima Surya, Sujatha Meyyappan, Sangita Raghunathan and Thenu Rajan as dancers, Jeyanthi Ghatraju on nattuvangam, Raajan Narayanan as the vocalist, Surya Sundararajan on the violin, Harish Narayan on the mridangam, Meyyappan (Saravanan) Meyyappan doing the photography and Kanth Ghatraju doing the audio and video recording.

Smt Indu Krishnamurthy who served as the EmCee introduced Jeyanthi Ghatraju who conducted the program. The recital consisted of collection of songs, mostly in Tamil by various composers, the central piece being the pancharatna krithi, Sadhinchane in ragam Arabhi. The items were choreographed by Jeyanthi Ghatraju, Padmini Ravi (Bangalore), Madurai Muralidaran (Chennai), Smt Sangita Raghunathan and the “sakhis” themselves, which provided a lasting impact on the packed audience. Smt Indhra Rajashekar, another dancer from Maine said that she was so inspired that she wanted to dance on stage with them.

Dr Alaknanda from Toronto, while proposing the vote of thanks to Sakhi was impressed by how five fabulous dancers came together and collaborated on this project with the loving support of their spouses in various ways. She commended their efforts and wished them a long artistic journey together. Overall, this group left a lasting impact by their vibrant and vivid presentation along with the strong message that artistic collaborations are possible and potent in enriching one’s own learning and artistic journey.

The day continued on with mini concerts by Montreal artists and guests from neighboring cities, followed by a music workshop on a bird’s eye comparison of Carnatic, Hindustani and Western classical music styles.

The finale was a vocal concert by youth artists born and/or brought up in North America. The ensemble consisted of Arthi Kumar, the vocalist from Michigan, Rasika Murali from Massachusetts on the violin and Rajna Swaminathan from Maryland on the mridangam. These youth artists are no strangers to the North American Carnatic music community and proved their talent and skills once again. 

On the whole, it was a wonderful tribute to the celebrated Saint offered by a team of dedicated musicians and sincere volunteers from all over North America. Our New England artists set themselves aside and above again!

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