Mysore/Mysuru: JSS Sangeetha Sabha is organising a weekend music festival on June 25 (Saturday) and June 26 (Sunday) at Navajyothi auditorium of JSS Women’s College in Saraswathipuram. Three concerts will be presented by renowned artistes as well as upcoming musicians.

On 25th at 6 pm, Vocalist M.K. Sankaran Namboothiri (Kerala) will perform along with Sumanth Manjunath on violin, Prof. Mavaluru Srinivasan on mridanga and Prof. J.S. Ramanujam on ghata.

Next day’s concert will begin with violin-mandolin duet by Abhay Anil Kumar (violin) from Canada and Rakshith Prasad (mandolin) from Mysuru, accompanied by Radhesh on mridanga and S. Manjunath on ghata.

This will be followed by a Hindustani classical performance by Dr. Nagaraj Rao Havaldar, (Bengaluru), supported on vocal by Omkar Nath Havaldar. He will be accompanied by Sameer Havaldar on harmonium and Kedarnath Havaldar on tabla.

Artistes’ profile

M.K. Sankaran Namboothiri is the youngest “A” top grade vocalist with All India Radio. Renowned as a child prodigy, he started learning music at the age of ten under C.S. Narayanan Namboothiri. He later trained under T.V. Gopalakrishnan, Mavelikkara Prabhakara Varma and K.V. Narayanaswamy.

Pt. Dr. Nagaraj Rao Havaldar is a disciple of Madhava Gudi, himself a prime disciple of Kirana scion Bhimsen Joshi. He holds a “Sangeetha Ratna” degree in Hindustani Classical Music from Karnataka University, Dharwad. A gold medallist in M.A. History and Archaeology,  he holds a Doctorate in Music from Karnataka University (thesis titled “The History of Classical Music in Karnataka”).

Abhay Anil Kumar was initiated into Karnatak music at the age of nine under Vid. Thanadevy Mithradeva of Toronto. Currently under the guidance of violin maestros Mysore Nagaraj and Mysore Dr. Manjunath, Abhay works as software developer for a consulting firm in Toronto.

Rakshith Prasad, a Master’s in Embedded Systems Engineering from BITS Pilani, has been guided by stalwarts like Vid. A.V. Dattatreya, Vid. Mandolin U. Shrinivas, Vid. Sampagodu Vighnaraja; presently by Vid. Dr. Mysore Manjunath.