MUMBAI: Ghatam maestro Suresh Vaidyanathan is launching a first of its kind competition to boost young talent and provide a platform to showcase their aptitudes.
The contest, ‘Isai velvi’- 2008 is in its first year and Suresh plans to make it an annual event in Chennai. The contest envisages around 30 groups comprising four players competing against each other for three days from 15 August onwards. Each participating group will be given 40 minutes to showcase their talent and the winners will be selected on the basis of audience vote and some eminent musicians on the panel.
“The response has been immense, and we have got about 57 groups’ entries within a few days,” says Vaidyanathan.
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Six groups will be shorlisted from the 30 competing groups and they would stand a chance of singing in full fledged evening concerts. “It is an honour to get a space to sing in the evening slots as newcomers usually get to sing only in the afternoon slots. Apart from this, the top three groups would be given cash prizes.”
The competition will see one independent lucky winner in three categories each, vocalist, instrumentalist and percussionist getting titles like ‘Nadakirti’, ‘Vadakirti’ (meaning instrumental fame in tamil).
Vaidyanathan has been approached by Professor Hans Neuhoss from Cologne University of Music and Dance to be part of their annual project “shifting Grounds” as the lone Indian percussionist to be held in May 2009. “Cologne University has an annual musical event with selected dancers and percussionists from India and Europe and I would be the sole musician representing India.
The ghatam maestro will also be a part of this year’s jazz festival in Madrid as a member of Sacred Drums of India to be held on 18th November. “I am one of the percussionists from India who have been invited to Madrid to perform. Accompanying me would be tabla player Shubhankar Banerjee, Rakesh Chaurasia on flute, Satish Kumar on Mridangam and Gopal Burman on Shree Khol.”
Talking about the penetration of Indian music abroad, he adds: “Europe has always been in the world music scene but exposure of Indian music has led to Indian music entry in Europe. As many international musicians travel to Indian on musical tours, they are getting attracted to Indian music and with internet tracking Indian musicians has become easy. Europeans are opening up to Indian music and I have many European students learning Indian music online via internet.”
