Carnatic Vocal By D L Prachotan

A 6th standard prodigy whose list of awards is longer than an innocent grocery list. Get here to see the power of juvenile genius.

Sangeetha Ksheerasagaram, in association with Vignana Samithi, Vijayanagar Fine Arts and Sujana Ranjani, is organising Sangeetha Neerajanam, a music festival in memory of Gana Dheera late Puranam Purushottama Sastry, from 26th March to 2nd April.

D Lakshmi Prachotan will be performing a Carnatic vocal on the 2md day of the festival, at 6pm. He will be accompanied by Peri Thyagaraju on the violin and Ch Ramakrishna on the mridangam.

Born in 1999, Prachotan was a child prodigy, having entered the Limca Book of Records in 2003 for identifying 250 different ragas in Carnatic music. He started learning music at a very young age of 2 years, from his mother Sirisha, a vocalist and disciple of D Seshachari. Currently under D Raghavachari, he has performed at the NTR Gardens and at Satya Sai Nigamagamam, and in Bangalore. He has taken part in ETV's Telugu Velugu, and Doordarshan's Paadalani Undi.

Studying in the 6th standard in Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Prachotan has received several awards, including the Chacha Nehru Award and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award, the Little Master Award from Sangam Academy, the Junior Excellent Award from the Delhi Telugu Academy, the Bala Surya Award from the AP state government, the Samaikya Bharat Gaurav Sathkar from the Madras Telugu Academy, and the Bala Brihaspathi, the Bala Kiranam and the Apara Bala Medhavi Awards.

He has participated in and won prizes at the Kalasagaram Annual Music Competitions, the Harvard Public School Inter-School Proficiency competitions, the All-India Level Varnam Competitions by Navya Nataka Samithi, and the Annamayya Sankeertana competitions by Annamacharya Bhavana Vahini. That's not all - he has been awarded an ICICI Brilliant Student trophy as well.

Puranam Purushottama Sastry, in whose memory this festival is being held, was a Carnatic vocalist, born into a music-oriented family in the year 1925. He trained under Sangeeta Kalanidhi the late Musiri Subrahmanya Iyer for 10 years, and in the process, became the 6th generation disciple of the Saint Thyagaraja line. He was awarded the Central Scholarship, and was also selected for All-India Radio without any audition. He had inputs of music from D K Rangachary and Tiger Varadachary.

Lalgudi Jayaraman, Palghat Raghu, Akella Mallikarjuna Sarma, Dr. M Bala Muralikrishna, Umayalpuram K Sivaraman, T V Gopalakrishnan, Dwaram Durgaprasad and Komunduri Seshadri are some of those who have accompanied him.

He received several awards and titles, with the Hamsa Award by the Government of Andhra Pradesh ranking foremost. He is the founder of Sadguru Thyagaraja Sampradaya Seva Samithi, a voluntary organisation promoting Saint Thyagaraja's music. He was interested in astrology, and imparted his services free of cost. And even though he never took to teaching music as a profession, he taught musicians at no cost.

Entry is free. Please contact V Ananda Mohan of Sangeeta Ksheerasagaram at 2761-4978 / 99495-90755 for further details.