And Ramani is a gold-medalist in Carnatic music from the Telugu University. It's so packed with excellence today at the Hari Hara Kala Bhavan, you don't have enough time to appreciate!
The Andhra Music Academy is organising its 7th Annual Music & Dance Festival from 24th to 29th January. The 6-day festival has some of best music vidhwans and most talented artistes of the current and the past generations performing, notably O S Thiyagarajan, Dr Yella Venkateshwara Rao, Akella Mallikarjuna Sarma, Garimella Balakrishna Prasad, Dwaram Durga Prasad and Satyanarayana Rao, the Hyderabad Brothers, Poosarla Manorama, Geeta Krishnamurthy, U Nagamani, Emani Lalithakrishna and Kumar Mardur.
Today, the inaugural day, M V Kamala Ramani, a Carnatic vocalist, will be performing in one of 3 programs. She will be accompanied by K Anil Kumar on the violin and K Rajagopalachary on the mridangam.
Ramani is a Post-Graduate gold medalist in Carnatic Music from the Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University, who's had her training under the tutelage of Dr S K Venkatachari in Hyderabad and Sangeeta Kalanidhi D K Pattammal in Chennai. At present, she is continuing her training under D Seshachari. She has been part of various concerts in AP, Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore.
She is the founder-director of a performing arts training centre, Keerthana Institute For Music And Dance, which she started in 1995 at Hyderabad, where she trains and prepares students for various stage performances and for Government music exams. Dance classes are looked after by Bala Tripura Sundari, daughter of legendary Dr Vempati Chinnasatyam.
The Andhra Music Academy was formed in 2001 to sponsor, support and patronise music. In this endeavour, the academy has roped in some very eminent musicians into its advisory panel, like Dr Mangalampalli Balamurali Krishna, Dr Nookala Chinna Satyanarayana and Nedunuri Krishna Murthy. The academy organises and conducts various music festivals every year and plans to soon organise these every month.
Every year, the prestigious awards of Sangeeta Vidyanidhi and Natya Vidyanidhi are conferred upon music and dancing legends. Dr Balamurali Krishna, Nedunuri, Nookala, M S Gopalakrishna, Annavarapu Ramaswamy, Pt Jasraj and Puranam Purushottama Sastry received the Sangeeta Vidyanidhi, while Vempati Chinna Satyam, Nataraja Ramakrishna and Vendantam Satyanarayana Sarma were the Natya Vidyanidhi awardees during the previous festivals.
The concert starts at 9:30am and the entry is free. For further details, please contact 94401-93582/98480-59020.