The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Young talent to the fore in the Arts

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Friday, Jun 13, 2008
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Young talent to the fore in the Arts

Ranjani Govind

The Gayana Samaja’s six-day festival with 12 artistes begins on June 16

BANGALORE: Tapping young talent has been the objective of The Bangalore Gayana Samaja for several decades. This initiative by the 104-year-old institution has seen the youth take to the stage in its ‘Talent Promotion Youth Festival of Music’ every year.

This year the six-day festival with 12 artistes begins on June 16, with two artistes performing in the evening slots every day.

Says H. Kamalanath, president, Bangalore Gayana Samaja, “Our Samaja’s approach to encourage classical music in society also helps students gain confidence, as they are overjoyed to take to the stage where star musicians have performed. This launch could help them bag greater opportunities as the selection here is after rigid rounds of consideration by a panel of judges based on their talent in the previous junior and senior-level competitions. Our fundamentals of encouraging children to learn and perform are by itself an effort in the Samaja’s propagation and preservation of Carnatic music.”

For a meaningful implementation of this objective, several competitions were held earlier in different age groups and the performance of each category — sub junior, junior, senior, general and pallavi — was judged separately for prizes.

These competitions were conducted for vocal, veena, violin, flute, mridanga, nagaswara, additional percussion and vachana rendering, apart from compositions of various composers including Purandara Dasa, Tyagaraja, Shyama Sastri, Muthuswami Dikshitar, Muttiah Bhagavathar, Swati Tirunal and the more recent Jayachamaraja Wodeyar, Mayuram Viswanatha Sastry, Padmanabha Rao, H. Yoganarasimham and Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna.

“To afford a platform of opportunities to the prize winners in these competitions and other competent students, Gayana Samaja commenced the Youth Festival,” says S.R. Sitharam, secretary, Bangalore Gayana Samaja.

“The selection of the participants in the junior festival is by a committee of senior artistes. The prize winners in the senior-level concerts would also be considered for the monthly concerts of the samaja,” he says.

It is interesting to note that stalwart musicians such as Dr. M. Balamurali Krishna and Vellore Ramabhadran were amongst the many who gave concerts at Gayana Samaja when they were 14-yer-olds and they were also part of the institution’s centenary celebrations in 2005 to mark their years of participation.

The youth festival is from June 16-21, 5.15 p.m. to 6.45 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.

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