MADRAS MUSIC MELA 2002 |
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GRAND ALL-NIGHT FEST FROM CARNATICA! |
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Unbelievable but true! This is what the ads that Shapre Carnatica gave out in the last few days for their New Year Eastern Ethnic Eve celebrations on December 31, 2002 said. And that’s exactly what happened on the 31st night between 10.30 pm and 6.30 am. It was a great treat to watch artistes, musicians, musicologists, Vedic pundits, bhajan singers and music lovers, all assembled together at this unique congregation. | ||
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At the stroke of midnight, everybody, including the audience chanted Om. Then Setalapati Balasubramaniam took over again and did a short namasankeertana. | ||
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After the namasamkeertana, all the artistes including Setalapati Balasubramaniam, N Vijay Siva, O S Tyagarajan, Srimushnam Raja Rao, R Suryaprakash, Prof. M R Rangarajan, B Ranjani, B Gayatri, Vasundhara Rajagopal, Lakshmi Rangarajan, Palghat Sriram, Nisha Rajagopal, Savita Narasimhan, Sangeeta, Lavanya, Akkarai Subhalakshmi, M Janardhanan, B Ganapatiraman, B Sivaraman, K V R S Mani, K V Gopalakrishnan, Trivandrum Balaji and Subhiksha Rangarajan together rendered Harinama samkeertana and the popular song calling for world peace, 'Shanti Nilava Vendum'. The assembled artistes also performed individually. Some of the surprises were the vocal performances of mridangist Srimushnam Raja Rao and Akkarai Subhalakshmi, who teamed up with her sister Swarnalata. These artistes also untiringly provided accompaniment all through the night. Sitarist M Janardhanan's choice of 'Do-Re-Mi' from the movie The Sound of Music and 'Lara's Theme' from Dr. Zhivago also came in as surprises. The Priya sisters also joined the function later and gave a short but crisp performance. The audience was treated to some traditional South Indian food in the form of ‘Panakam’, ‘Ven Pongal’, ‘Sweet Pongal’, ‘Badam Kheer’ and ‘Masala Chai’, to keep them refreshed. Veda Parayana started by about 5 am and continued till 6.15 am. The function came to a finish with a performance of the Carnatica Brothers, K N Shashikiran and P Ganesh. |
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Posted on January 3, 2003 |
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