Whistle Concert By K Siva Prasad

Neeharika Institute Of Dance And Music is organising its annual music & dance festival on 21st, 22nd and 23rd of March, at the Lalitha Kala Thoranam in Public Gardens. The 3-day festival will feature some top musicians in whistle wizard K Shiva Prasad, the Hyderabad Sisters, legendary mridangist Dr. Yella Venkateshwara Rao, and dancers in Dr. Alekhya Punjla, Vyjayanthi Kashi and Vedantam Ramalinga Sastry.

Komaravolu Shiva Prasad will be performing a Carnatic whistle concert on the opening day of the festival. He will be accompanied by B S Narayana on the violin, D S R Murthy on the mridangam, Ramu on the tabla, Ghantasala Satya Sai on the morsing and Guruprasad on the keyboard.

Whistling is a rare and specialised art in the world of music, and Siva Prasad has mastered it to perfection. Hailing from a family of scholars in arts & sciences, he received no formal initiation into the world of music nor any special instruction. It was his own intense interest and enthusiasm for creating music through whistling that led him to where he is.

Prasad had the rare opportunity of receiving guidance from the legendary Carnatic vocalist Dr. M Balamurali Krishna. And his meetings with the immortal shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan inspired and rekindled in him a love and fascination for Hindustani Music. Added to this, the grammar and text of music imparted by the reputed flute vidwan N S Srinivasan enriched his talent and made him a complete artiste.

He has performed in over 10,000 concerts in India and in many parts of the world including Muscat, Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar, Bangkok, Singapore, USSR, USA, Malaysia, Australia and Mauritius. He received several titles including Whistle Wizard by the Indian Express in the year 1981, Andhra Nightingale by M G Ramachandran in 1982, Mukha Murali by Ganapati Sachidananda Swami, Swasa Murali by Padmabhushan Dr. C Narayana Reddy in 1997, and the Ugadi Puraskar for 2002 by the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

Neeharika Institute Of Dance And Music has been started by Vanaja Uday, a Kuchipudi dancer, teacher and a choreographer, in Chikkadpally. The institute teaches several students in the dance form of Kuchipudi. Vanaja is a senior disciple of Dr. Uma Rama Rao, and is a Lecturer in the Department Of Dance at the Telugu University. A renowned Kuchipudi dancer, she has performed all over India, and in USA, Canada, London, South Africa, Malaysia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

Please contact Vanaja Uday at 2763-1205/98490-62103 for further details.