October CCC Sunday 2024

Namaskaram everyone,

Our October monthly event was this past Sunday, the day after Vijayadasami and a fitting conclusion to the 9 day long Navarathri Festival. It was great to cap off Navarathri with a celebration of music featuring vocal, violin, veena, mridangam, and ghatam! This month we introduced a new Veena artist as well as new violin and mridangam accompanists.

We began the music-laden afternoon with a brisk performance of Ninnukori in Vasantha and Karpagame Kan Parai in Madhyamavathi by our debutante vainika, Anand Prabhakar. Our other two debut performers, Madhura on Violin and Saatvik on Mridangam, provided spectacular accompaniment to Sahana who magnificently presented Sendhil Andavan and Sakala Graha Bala Neene. We covered a spectrum of ragas throughout the event, from Sahana's strong Kharaharapriya, Vipula's Kamas, Anish's vibrant Vachaspathi to Rathika's emotional Mukhari and concluding with Suraga's beautiful Bhairavi RTP set to Thisra Jathi Jhampa Thalam.

We give our sincere appreciation for each of the performers’ gurus who spent countless hours preparing them for our event amidst the busyness of the Navaratri. A special thank you must be given to the gurus who attended our October CCC in person; Guru Sri Srikanth Chary, Guru Smt Kasthuri Shivakumar, Guru Sri Hari Devanath, Guru Sri Gopi Lakshminarayanan, and Guru Smt Akila Iyer.

While CCC allows us to showcase the musical talents of our budding artists, our quarterly magazine, the Carnatic Chronicles, puts our artists’ journalistic acumen on full display. It is filled with amazing articles, interviews, artwork, and more, all from our very own CCC children. If you want to learn more about the similarities and differences between Carnatic and Jazz, there's an article in there by Arya Hariharan on that very topic. HOW MANY OF YOU KNOW about Gopal Ravindhran, one of our CCC alumni who’s making strides with his mrudangam playing? Get to know him a bit more as he is also featured in this edition. Or if you were curious about the musical journeys of September born Carnatic legends Papanasam Shivan or Lalgudi G Jayaraman, there's a piece in there by Prasanna Shankar diving into several facts about these greats.  This fall's Feature-A-Guru segment covers Vidwan Injikudi E.M. Subramaniam and his musical journey as a performing Nadaswaram artist. You can check out this Fall 2024 edition as an easy to read flipbook on our website www.carnaticchamberconcerts.com. Please give it a read and support our young carnatic journalists!

One thing we must mention is the immense hardwork and dedication our CCC volunteers pour into this organization each and every day. The audio, video, powerpoint, attendance, photography, social media, and magazine pour their effort into the work they do and CCC wouldn’t be possible without them. Our youth volunteers are equally crucial to the smooth operation of CCC and ensure the legacy of not only CCC but the art form. We welcomed new youth volunteers Sathya (video team), Manasa (ppt team), Saanvi (photo team), and Saatvik/Kedar (social media team) at this auspicious Vijayadasami event. A big shout out to them and other youth volunteers for choosing CCC as one of their extracurricular volunteering activities in spite of their busy school schedules.

 

On a related note, three youth volunteers Prisha Balan, Sahana Kumar and Shriya Ganesh were acknowledged with Presidential Service Awards for their volunteer work with our magazine team. CCC is certified to give out these awards to eligible students so we encourage students to avail this wonderful opportunity to volunteer with CCC! 

Our next event will be on November 10th, 2024 at Shirdi Sai Parivaar in Milpitas from 2PM to 5PM. Wishing you and your families a very happy Deepavali! 

Thanks,
Sanjay Garimella and Anirudh Raja (October CCC Emcees)