Apollo Bharat Sangeet Utsav, a pan-Indian musical extravaganza, organised by Carnatica in association with Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha, is back.
The musical event is seen as a prelude to the Chennai Music Festival.
The Utsav began on November 2 at Narada Gana Sabha and was formally inaugurated by the M. Jennifer A. Mclntyre, Consul General, U.S. Consulate, Chennai. Dr. Preetha Reddy, Managing Director Apollo Hospitals, lighted the ceremonial lamp.
K.N. Shasikiran, Managing Trustee, Carnatica said: “This year being the centenary year of Sri Madurai Mani Iyer, the first three days of the festival will be dedicated it to the legend. Nalli Kuppusamy Chetti; R. Natraj, Chairman, TNPSC; Cleveland V.V. Sundaram; T.V. Sankaranarayanan; M. Balamuralikrishna; Dr. Umayalpuram Sivaraman will pay tribute to him.”
The Utsav features numerous stars and veterans from the Carnatic genre, including Madurai T.N. Seshagopalan, Neyveli Santhanagopalan, Vijay Siva, Nithyasree Mahadevan, Sanjay Subrahmanyan, T.M. Krishna, Gayathri Venkatraghavan and others. In addition to this, the festival features popular duo combinations of V.V. Subramaniam and V.V.S. Murari, Hyderabad Brothers, Malladi Brothers, Priya Sisters, Ranjani-Gayathri, Visakha Hari and Saketharaman, Trichur Brothers.
Fusion and jugalbandhi segment consist of performances by Chitravina Ravikiran and Ronu Mazumdar, Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil Gurucharan with world percussion maestro Prof. Mark Stone (US), who is on his first visit in India.
The other fusion concert by Dr. Jyotsna Srikanth and Carnatica Brothers will be part of an unique thematic programme called ‘Carnatic Fusion Dream.’ The team consists of Keith Peters, Shadrach Soloman, Tumkur Ravishankar, N.S. Manjunath and Karthik Mani. A special programme by Jaya TV Subhashree Thanikachalam’s – Chinnakuyilgalum Singaravelanum, a peep into Lord Murugan songs in Tamil films, will also be part of the festival.
