Learn Quest Academy annual music conference is back! This year, musicians from a wide array of musical genres both Carnatic and Hindustani—and from legendary performers to emerging artists perform over a week long festival delighting fans in New England.

The conference enters its 7th successful year and hits all the right notes thanks to the patrons, supporters and music aficionados in the Boston area. While the main conference will take place at the performance center in Regis College in Weston from March 30th through April 1st, performances at Berklee College of music, Harvard and MIT will also take place.

This year the Carnatic segment will feature a dazzling display combining the music of young and emerging artists as well as the legends from India: Here is a sampler:

Thursday, March 29^th - There will be a lecture demonstration by Neveli Santhanagopalan on "the influence of veena in Dikshidar's compositions".This will be held at the Wong auditorium at MIT at 7 pm with the collaboration of MITHAS. Sri Muthuswami Dikshidar was a vainika and used all the veena gamakas in his composition. Neyveli Santhanagoplan though known as a vocalist, musicologist and teacher, is also a very good veena exponent. Known for his traditional and purist styles of rendering ragas, musical compositions and swaras, Santhanagopalan acts as an anchor for the Jaya TV program SaRiGaMaPa.

Saturday March 31^st - Neyveli Santhanagoplan will also give a vocal concert at the Regis college auditorium as part of the main conference with his accompanying artists.

Saturday March 31^st -There will be a flute concert by Shanthala Subramaniam, sister of the very well know flute artist Shashank Subramaniam.

Saturday  March 31^st - An outstanding Carnatic vocalist and a National award winning playback singer, the very versatile vocalist Unni Krishnan will make a repeat appearance at this 7th annual music conference and give a full length vocal concert on Saturday evening with his accompanying artists Embar Kannan, another repeat appearance, on the violin and Ananthakrishnan on the mridangam

Sunday April 1^st -Prasant Radhakrishnan is a versatile saxophonist identified with both the Carnatic and Jazz disciplines. The unique vocal texture of his sound on saxophone, noted for its expressive complexity and rhythmic ingenuity, reflects Prasant’s continued study of tradition, constant innovation, and vast concert experience.  Prasant Radhakrishnan, a disciple of Kadri Gopalnath will give a concert on his saxophone with our own home grown young artist Suhas on the violin and Sri Umayalpuram Mali, an accomplished mridangam artist from India who is at Harvard during the current semester on a Fulbright scholarship.

Sunday April 1^st- Nirmala Rajasekar is a world renowned Carnatic veena virtuoso and educator of South Indian Music. She has performed in venues throughout the world and is a recipient of many awards including a Bush artistic fellowship, a McKnight fellowship, Rotary Vocational Excellence award and Best Senior Veena Artiste. A carnatic/hindustani jugal bandhi on the veena and sitar with mridangam and tabla accompaniments will be presented by the group ‘Sub Lime’ with Nirmala Rajasekhar from Minneapolis on the veena, Gaurav Mazumdar on the Sitar, Tanjore Murugaboopathi on the mridangam and Vishal Nagar on the tabla.

Sunday April 1st:  Vidwan O. S. Thyagarajan is a classicist of traditional outfit who ‘paints’ in glorious colors the fine shades of raga, kriti and swara in his numerous concerts will perform on Sunday.

Attendees to this event will remember its rich music, the countless performances, workshops and musicians it produces, and the incredible music events it orchestrates.

For more information please visit  http://learnquest.org/conference2012/

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