January CCC Sunday 2025

Dear Members,

Hope you all had a joyful MakaraSankaraanthi / Pongal festival! Our CCC's 16th Anniversary INTRO SPECIAL event on Sunday was marked with a full house of dedicated CCC member families, esteemed resident gurus and well-wishers making the event a truly heart-warming, memorable and grand! Our heartfelt gratitude to each and every resident guru for their unwavering love and for taking time from their busy schedules to join us in this milestone celebration showering blessings on CCC and our performing young students! Our 16th Anniversary celebration featured an INTRO SPECIAL event that showcased a total of 16 performances with all main performers being introduced for the very first time. Apart from this, we were excited to introduce several new accompanists to CCC marking their debut performances as well. We introduced 14 new Vocalists, 7 new Violinists, 1 new Keyboardist, 2 new Vainikas on accompaniment and 7 talented young mridangists. Each of our Intro performers presented with great confidence and poise. It was a delight to see all students dressed in festive attire and many of them color-coordinated and their enthusiasm was truly infectious. Our January event also had deeper significance as we celebrated the sacred month of Margazhi, a month very close to the heart of Lord Narayana and a day that celebrates the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva as Arudra Dharshanam. The performance started with a befitting tribute with an energetic varnam in the ragam Abhogi instantly setting the celebratory mood, followed by a kriti in the ragam Kannada BangaLa invoking the blessing of Goddess Renuka devi of Thiruvarur beautifully rendered by Sakshee & Svaksha. Then Anirudh presented another brisk varnam in Hamsadhwani. Laasya & Aditi sought the blessing of Lord Ganesha with their riveting rendering of Panchamatanga and Sri Vignarajam. Veda sang Shobillu, a kriti by Saint Thyagaraja paid homage to the divine forms of seven musical notes while Pradyuun offered a varnam in Lord Shiva's favorite ragam Shankarabharanam followed by Aadikondaar, a song that describes the splendor of Lord Shiva's cosmic dance. Ananya's Kanaka sabapathi dharisanam was another mesmerizing kriti on Lord Shiva that reveals the profound secret of salvation. Sia's Anudinamu, Anusha's Manavyala, Sivanee's Brova bharama, Dhriti's Manasa etulo, the duet of Navya & Abhinaya's Thiruppavai pasuram & Balakrishnan padamalar, Avanija's Nagumomu were all sung with reverence like a floral offerings to Lord Narayana in the auspicious month of Margazhi. Medha Sree's rendition of Durusuga and Shreya's performance of Kamalambam bhajare were two soulful kritis rich in lyrical beauty sung nicely in praise of Goddess Parvati. Maya's Ajike Yaathakayya was a unique kriti beautifully rendered on Lord Anjaneya. All our 13 accompanists on strings and 16 percussionists did a fantastic job skillfully embellishing and enhancing each and every performance. They made the performances enjoyable with their wonderful support. Each of the 16 performances consisted of a thoughtfully curated selection of songs from a variety of composers, that reflected the profound connection between music and divinity, and elevated the experience of the audience. We sincerely thank all the gurus for their dedicated efforts in training all these talented children. We are truly grateful to our resident gurus Natarajan Srinivasan, Snigdha Venkataramani, Akila Iyer, Sandhya Srinath, Srinath Bala, Kasthuri Shivakumar, Hari Devanath, Savita Rao, Anuradha Sundar, Mahesh Balaji, and Hamsa Raghuvir for making time to be at the event to bless our performers.  It was also very nice to have our alumni/teachers Vignesh Thyagarajan, Santhosh Ravindrabharathy cheering for their students and guest teacher Sri.C.V. Subramaniam attended our event for the very first time. We acknowledged all our students with outstanding attendance with our annual attendance awards -  with the students who attended 12 or all monthly events in 2024 as Gold Circle winners, and those who attended all but one event earned Silver Circle and those who attended 10 events as Bronze Circle recognition. Our hearty congratulations to all the students who received these awards for their dedication and consistent attendance. We extend our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of our dear volunteers across various teams -  audio, video, powerpoint, photography, social media, attendance, website and magazine for their tireless efforts, often working well in advance, ensuring all aspects of the event are meticulously covered and the event runs seamlessly. A special shout out goes to Nami and his team of volunteers who had a challenging time yet continuously ensuring all audio requirements for each of the 16 performances are taken care of,  so that our young musicians' hard work shine and provide the audience with an exceptional listening experience.  Our sincere thanks go to the parents who generously helped with setup, cleanup, logistics, and who thoughtfully brought coffee and tea for our volunteers to enjoy after a long, rewarding day. Your unwavering support has been invaluable in making this event a success! Please save February 2nd, Sunday (2pm to 5pm) for our next event at Shirdi Sai Parivaar. Regards, Radha Lakshmikanthan & Padma Mohan

(on behalf of OPERATIONS team)