Upcoming Events

Date: Saturday, September 18, 2010

Time: 8:00 am - 6:00 pm    

Venue: Intel Jones Farm Conference Center Auditorium, 2111 NE 25th, Hillsboro, OR

Cost: Free for the community.  Food available for purchase at the venue. 

Venue Directions: http://www.intel.com/community/tour/oregon/directions.htm

Carnatic music is from the Southern peninsula of the Indian subcontinent. It is rich in compositional and improvisational forms with a systematic approach to learning. This approach has encouraged students and connoisseurs to take part and enjoy the richness in various facets. Integral to the music are spiritual, mythological and secular ideas expressed in different languages by South Indian composers. The history of Carnatic music gains clear contours from the Renaissance period, which in South India, had its center in the Vijayanagara Empire (1335-1565).

This program brings the community together in celebrating and expressing their love for arts. We welcome you to enjoy the music presented by participants who have consistently made it a much awaited event of the year. Participants of the event are selected and recommended by the music teachers in the Northwest. Due to the limited time for this year's event, we urge the teachers to judiciously group the participants.

Kindly RSVP via email to dhvani@dhvani.org, providing the number of people attending the program. This will help with the planning activities. We also request the music teachers to kindly respond via email to dhvani@dhvani.org with the selected performing student groups.

Artists : Uday Bhawalkar (Dhrupad, Dagar Bani, Voice)

             Sreevidhya Chandramouli (Carnatic, Karaikudi Bani, Vina & Voice)

Date: Sunday, October 3, 2010

Time: 4:00 pm - 6:30 pm    

Venue: Evans Music Center, Lewis & Clark College,  615 SW Palatine Hill Rd., Portland, OR 97219

Cost: Adults - $20, Kids 8 to 18 - $10, Kids under 8 - Free

Venue Directions: http://www.lclark.edu/visit/directions 

Kindly RSVP via email to dhvani@dhvani.org, providing the number of people (adults & kids over 8) attending the program. This will help with the planning activities.

About Uday Bhawalkar

Uday Bhawalkar was born in 1966 in Madhya-Pradesh and began studying Indian classical music as a boy. At 15 he was selected to study at the Dhrupad Kendra in Bhopal. He lived and studied Dhrupad for 12 years in the residences of his Gurus, Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar and the Rudra-Vina Maestro Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, in Bhopal and Mumbai. His long training with his Gurus in the rigorous practice of Dhrupad helped him to appreciate the subtle nuances and majesty of this music.

In 1985 Uday gave his first performance of Dhrupad singing at Bhopal and since then has performed at many prominent music festivals in India. He began performing internationally in 1990 and has presented many solo concerts throughout Europe and in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. He has also performed in a number of world music festivals in Europe, including World of Music and Dance (WOMAD) in England, the SFINKS festival in Belgium, and the World Music Festival in Switzerland.

Uday has collaborated with artists from other disciplines and cultures, including the contemporary dancer Astad Deboo, “Ensemble Modern” in Germany, and professional musicians from Spain and the United States. In addition, he has contributed to the soundtracks of international art films, including Mani Kaul’s ”Cloud Door,” Aparna Sen’s “Mr. & Mrs. Iyer” and Amol Palekar’s “Anahat.” Several recordings of Uday Bhawalkar’s Dhrupad performances are available on CD in India and abroad.

Uday served as Visiting Artist at the Department of Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington from 2006 to 2008.

About Sreevidhya Chandramouli

Sreevidhya Chandramouli, a most sought-after teacher and performer in voice and vina (lute) of South Indian music, is a resident of Portland, Oregon since the late 80s. She is from the illustrious Karaikudi Vina Tradition, the only living tradition from South India with more than ten generations of Vina players. Sreevidhya learnt from her mother Late Smt. Rajeswari Padmanabhan, a ninth generation exponent and granddaughter of Karaikudi Subbarama Iyer, the elder of the Karaikudi Vina Brothers (Subbarama Iyer and Sambasiva Iyer). As a traditional artist, she was groomed in teaching and performance from early on. She combines the traditional methods with her experience in painting to teach South Indian music and culture. She is a painting disciple of the renowned musician-musicologist-painter Late Sri.S.Rajam.  Sreevidhya also pursued vocal training with Late Sri.Vairamanagalam Lakshminarayanan (Kalakshetra School of Fine Arts, Chennai, India) and also from Smt.Suguna Varadachari (Chennai, India).

Sreevidhya majored in music from University of Madras, Chennai, India. She has served as a visiting artist at University of Washington (1993-95) and as artist-in-residence at University of Oregon in 2004. As an adjunct faculty at the Department of Music in University of Oregon, she teaches Music of India course. Her performance and teaching career spans over 25 years with performances in Asia, Europe and North America. Some of her prestigious concerts include performances for Library of Congress and Kennedy Center (2009), KIT Tropentheater, Netherlands (2003), Long night of Indian Music for Sender Freies Berlin (Berlin Radio, 2001) and Festival of Saitanklange (Festival of Stringed Instruments, Museum für Völkerkunde & House of World Cultures, Germany, 1991). Sreevidhya has won several awards and recordings to her credit. She was featured along with her mother in the book The Singer & the Song: Conversations with women musicians by C.S. Lakshmi (published in 2000).

In 2009, Sreevidhya was a featured artist of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at University of Oregon. 

Sreevidhya is a practicing vina melam builder (vina fretting). She has deepened her interest by conducting summer workshops on vina melam building in Portland, OR. In the summer of 2005, she collaborated with Brhaddhvani ( www.brhaddhvani.org ), a Research & Training center for Musics of the World, Chennai, India, on a documentation project to make vina and tambura with a group of vina students from Pacific Northwest.

Sreevidhya is a founding member of Dhvani (www.dhvani.org). Through Dhvani, she brings community programs involving students and teachers of Indian music in the northwest and presents concerts and lecture-demonstrations by artists.