Mandolin Recital By U P Raju & Nagamani

Nada Tarangam Trust is presenting its 2nd Annual Gokulastami Music Festival from 15th to 21st August, at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan auditorium, King Koti. The 7-day music festival will feature renowned Carnatic musicians like Neyveli R Santhanagopalan, U P Raju and Nagamani, Shreyas Narayanan, T V Shankara Narayanan, D Srinivas, Sanjay Subrahmanyan and Unnikrishnan in concert.

Today, the second day, the mandolin duo U P Raju and Nagamani will perform, along with M L N Raju on the mridangam. U P Raju learnt from a young age under R Subbaraju, undergoing 7 years of rigorous training through the Gurukulavasam system. Thereafter, he received advanced training from Calcutta K S Krishnamoorthi. He received many prizes and awards, including a special prize by the Krishna Gana Sabha for distinguished performance, the K S Mahadevan endowment for the best junior artist playing a foreign instrument by the Narada Gana Sabha, and the Yuva Bharati award from Bharat Kalachar.

P Nagamani, a precocious teenager, ranks on par with many Carnatic exponents much senior to her in age. Under the loving and careful guidance of her uncle and mentor, Mandolin U P Raju, this prodigal child has developed into a fine artist. By the age of 9, she had performed as a seasoned soloist in the hallowed portals of the grand music sabhas of Madras. She has had advanced training under Calcutta K S Krishnamoorthi. She was declared Best Junior Artist by the Krishna Gana Sabha. She was also the recipient of the Ambujam Krishna award from the Madras Music Academy in 1994.

Together, they have performed extensively around the globe in countries like South Africa, USA, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Dubai, Sri Lanka, France, Switzerland and Germany, besides all over India.

Nada Tarangam Trust was started on 16th August, 2005, by a renowned mridangam, ghatam and jaltarang artiste Nemani Somayajulu. Somayajulu is a senior artiste who has done his diploma in mridangam from the M R College For Music, Vizianagaram, in 1972, and has since accompanied many music vidhwans like Dr. Managalampally Bala Muralikrishna, Dr. Nookala Chinna Satyanarayana, Dr. Nedunuri Krishna Murthy, Dr. Chitti Babu, Dr. L Subrahmanyam, Dwaram Durgaprasad, the Malladi Brothers and Veena D Srinivas, to various parts of India. He has also presented a fusion concert of Jaltarang with mridangist Umalaypuram Sivaraman in the USA. He is probably the only male jaltarang player of Carnatic music in the world.

Please contact Nemani Somayajulu at 2703-8383/98663-68186 for further details.