June CCC, 2024

Dear all,

Please see the summary as written by one of our emcees, Samyuktha Natesan below. I've also attached the link to the video from the event below.

Happy Summer,

Padma

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Namaskaram everyone,

Last Sunday, CCC hosted its June 2024 event at Shirdi Sai Parivar, where we celebrated Father’s day and thoroughly enjoyed the music of many talented young artists. This special event featured 5 instrumental solos, a first in CCC history, and the audience listened to five first time performers, Sahana Karthik, Samvrith Ganesh, Sreelaasya Kanakadandi, Prasanna Vijay, and Sathya Ganesan. It being the month of June and the start of summer, we had 4 very recent high school graduates perform on our CCC stage, Aditi Anand, Sri Haasini Saripella, Sanjay Chandrasekar, and Vaibhav Prakash, and we are elated to have heard them. All the returning performers put up a great show, exhibiting improvement in one aspect or another.

The highlight of Sunday's event was the diversity in ragas and instruments. Rasika Ramakrishnan, Sahithya Srinivasan, Samvrith Ganesh, and Vidarth anbu brought the audience beautiful flavors of staple ragas like Bhairavi, Shankarabharanam, and Abhogi through their singing. We were able to hear two gorgeous renditions of the Kalyani varnam, VanajakshirO, from first Sahana Karthik on the violin, and then Maya Subramoni on the flute. Sanvi Krishnan brought out the beauty of Kanada in her rendition of Mamavasada Janani on the violin. We also heard from two talented vainikas, Sreelaasya, who skillfully performed the Navaragamalika varnam, and Sri Haasini, who shared the raga bhavam of Reethigowlai with us in Nannu Vidachi. These were not the only instrumental treats the CCC audience received. In the RTP slot, where Prisha Balan, accompanied by Rathika Balaji on the violin, expertly sang a Brindavana Saranga Pallavi with an impressive layam challenge, two percussionists took the stage at once. Vaibhav Prakash on the mrudangam and Sathya Ganesan on the ghatam collaborated beautifully to bring the RTP team together!

We would like to thank all of the supportive gurus who attended the event despite their busy schedules! Thank you to Smt. Kasthuri Shivakumar, Sri Shivkumar Bhat, Sri. Srikanth Chary, Smt. Sandhya Srinath, Smt. Savita Rao, Smt. Anuradha Sundar, Smt. Akila Shankar, Smt. Rama Thyagarajan, Smt. Hamsa Raghuvir, Smt. Snigdha Venkataramani, Sri. Gopi Lakshminarayanan, Sri. Natarajan Srinivasan  and Sri. Saravanapriyan Sriraman. We would also like to thank T.S. Ranganathan Sir for attending the event and sharing his kind words of encouragement for our students and praise for our resident Bay Area gurus, and our CCC community.

We extend a very special thank you to all the volunteers who make CCC and its monthly events possible. Every team and every volunteer works together outside of their other responsibilities just to make sure our Bay Area music community has consistent opportunity and support in CCC. Additionally, thank you Padma Aunty for this amazing MC opportunity. You made this job so seamless for Avinash and I with your support, late night zoom calls, script revisions, and feedback! Thank you to Vardhinee and Rahul as well, as they MCed the June 2023 CCC event and gave us the inspiration to continue their tradition of Dad jokes again at this year's event!

This event, we were also able to celebrate Padma Aunty receiving the Kala Seva Mani Award in the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana this year! We are all ecstatic to see Padma Aunty get the recognition she deserves for cultivating cultural arts and music among young students in the Bay Area through CCC for the past 15 years!

We will have one more CCC event this month, which will be in honor of all of our high school graduating seniors! The event will have many RTP slots and feature recent high school graduates and CCC alumni, so please come on June 23rd at 2 pm to San Jose High School for this special treat! 

Thank you,
Samyuktha Natesan (On behalf of Padma Aunty & Avinash Anand)