Srirama Samajam Sangeeta sabha in Kakinada recently organised a 10-day annual classical music and harikatha festival ‘Ganapathi Varshikotsavalu’ in Suryakala Mandiram. The organisation, which has been running a free music school for the last 121 years designed the event in such a way that it provided an opportunity to youngsters as well as veteran musicians to perform their best . Students of Srirama Samajam began the event with their vocal concert, which was followed by a harikatha recital by K.J.B. Narayana Bhagavatar of Visakhapatnam.
Renowned vocalists such as V.V.S. Bhargava of Hyderabad, Popuri Gowrinath of Vijayawada, Aravind Soundar Rajan, Mysore Sangeetha, and Ananya Ashok of Chennai enthralled the audience with their recitals. Similarly, young artistes N. Venkatalochan of Kakinada, K. Lohitha Datta of Vijayawada, Vankayala Sruthi Sarani of Visakhapatnam, Sishtu Madhusudan of Rajahmundry, Chilukuri Subbalakshmi of Kakinada, R.L. Krishna Priya of Visakhapatnam, Tatapudi Saikrishna Sudhanjali of Yanam and Bhairavabhatla Venkata Subrahmanya Sarma of Kakinada made good use of the opportunity provided to them to perform in front of the connoisseurs of classical music.
The concert of musician couple Tadepalli Srikishna and Rukmini from Trichy needs a special mention, as the audience response was good. The response was similar for the rendition of harikatha by Telugu film artiste P. Kalyani Bhagavatarini, who narrated ‘Valli Kalyanam’ with minute details. S. Bharathi Bhagavatarini recited ‘Gowri Kalyanam’ harikatha, while Tadepalli Lokanatha Sarma of Chennai gave a demonstrative lecture on ‘Nada Yoganubhavam.’
The concert by Komanduri Seshadri, his sons Sowri Rajan and K.V. Krishna and grandson Jayaram was the concluding event of the fest.
