Last week a ‘Taala Vadya Kacheri’ group led by mridangam artiste Peravali Jayabhasker was invited to take part in the ‘4th International Festival of Drums and Traditional Arts’ held at Cairo from April 19 to 25. The festival was titled ‘Drums Dialogue for Peace’. The Indian group comprised of Peravali Jayabhaskar on mridangam, Ramachandrudu on thavil, Udaya Kumar on ghatam, Chandrakanth on tabla, Satyanarayana Murthy on kanjira, Nand Kumar on sitar and Rajashekhar on violin.
The Inaugural ceremony was held at the historic ‘Citadel of Saladin’ in which groups from 20 countries like Egypt, India, China, Romania, Malaysia, South Africa and so on performed together before a large audience. India was given special status as ‘Guest of Honor’ country in this festival. Accordingly lead artiste Jayabhaskar received the ‘Guest of Honor’ memento from the Egyptian Minister of Culture, Helmy El - Nemnem and Entssar Abdel - Fattah, Director of the Festival. They also presented Certificate of Merit.
