The Cupertino Kuyils decided that one of us should volunteer to be more involved in SIFA. Given I was there two hours before concerts to help the guys move equipment, to after the end of the concert to help cleanup.. and also given that I am no longer part of the carpool to the concerts, they all looked at me…
Everyone in the group nominated me and after a few of the board and existing committee members talked to me, they said I should be the joint Secretary. Was happy to be part of this group of music afficianados. They always told interesting back stories and were willing to teach me the ropes. Two of them in particular, Shanthi Venkatesh and Vish Ganapathy literally have been coaching me for the last six months on “how to be a good volunteer”, not to mention the rest of the group who have all been amazing!
Before taking this on, I did tell them that because of the India trip and the Japan trip in the works, I would miss 3 of the 8 concerts in Spring but will do my best to support all till I was here. They were okay with it.
Volunteering has been a different experience. You don’t necessarily get to sit in one place and listen to the concert. You have to keep walking in and out. It is about supporting the event to make sure everything is going okay. Checking messages from other committee members during concert, taking audience reactions, preparing intro speeches, email marketing, event photography when our aasthana photographer is busy, etc. Compared to other folks I do a lot less, so one can only imaging the effort that goes into these events.
Dealing with artists expectations and sound checks.. the audio team is very very special for the way they have to try and make every artist happy with the sound balance in record time.
All that said, I have thoroughly enjoyed this role over the last 6 months!
We started with the Tyagaraja Aaradhana at the local Cupertino Quinlan community center. Our group was there to support me!
Then there was the annual Shivrathri dance festival organized by Anuradha Prabhashakar. This year was special. It was a two day event with a lot of dance groups with different dance styles. Enjoyed it thoroughly!
In the middle of the spring series, we were fortunate to host San’s music teacher at our place for a Hindustani Bitek (home concert). Jr. became an event planner during this and contributed immensely to this, including the decor. We wanted to have a “forest theme” and she made the wall look foresty enough. We were able to host 60 people with floor seating and the couches rearranged. Given more than 50 percent of the audience cannot sit cross legged on the floor, next time we host an event like this, will need more chairs! That was another lesson learned.
Here is the spring concert series in review and we also had a special event between the Spring and Fall series. That needs a post in itself.
The Aaradhana which was really well attended by all the local music teachers, their students and rasikas!
The morning was singing the Pancharathnam. The afternoon was a chance to folks to register and sing to the audience. A lot of kids and adults signed up. Was thinking we should publish who is singing what song and have a first come first served list so that we avoid repeats from the kids. Kind of like what we do in our smule singing meets. There were a lot of “theliyaledu rama’s”. All interesting and from kids of different age groups.
The Shivrathri two day dance event! Hats off to Anu for doing this every year for 25 years now! It has been an honor to be the photographer for this event for sometime now. A heartfelt thanks to Anu for inviting me every year to take photos! It is one thing to know when a kid is going to jump or hold a pose in an Arangetram as we would have familiarity. It is another thing to try and capture an event which was choreographed last minute and no one has seen it before. Literally get to see the dance through the viewfinder!
The home Bitek concert!! Jaya as usual was outstanding in her singing and audience engagement. I would have loved to invite more of my SIFA friends to this but by the time her students and close friends showed up we were already worried about capacity! This was also my compering attempt.. which came in handy while introducing artists at SIFA concerts!
After this was the start to the regular SIFA spring series. The first was a truly grand production with over a 100 students of Vid. Latha Sriram called “Shanmukha- The lord of Victory” based on the Aarupadai veedu theme. It was fantastic! Not often do you get to see a Kanjira and Morsing played at a concert! Also the logistics of having 100 kids on stage was organized really well with the parent support group for this music school.
The next event was a double header. The first concert was by Vid. Asha Ramesh immediately followed by Vid. Gayathri Venkataraghavan. Vid. Asha is my local favorite along with my friend and her collaborator Vid. Nachiketha Sharma and Vid. Gayathri is someone I never miss as my guru Vid. Koushik Ramchander is a big fan of her. Over the years I have used her youtube videos as references on many songs!
It was an exhausting day running around. Registered 5 miles of walking all day within the auditorium over the two back to back concerts! Was happy doing it though!
The thaniaavarthanams from both Vid. Ravindrabharathy and Vid. Bharadhwaj will stay in my mind for a long time. Very different styles, very different sounds from their instruments and it was a lesson to watch how different artists bring out the flavor of their instruments in creative ways.
The next event was by Vid. Ramakrishnan Murthy. This is our second time seeing him at SIFA. I would not be surprised if he is giving a Sangeetha Kalaanidhi recognition soon. His craft is improving exponentially! It was a new venue for us which had its challenges for the crowd that showed up. Need larger venues for him going forward! 500 seats are not enough!
This was followed by Anubhav, a Vocal and Flute experience, put together by Vid. Shashank, Vid. Abhishek Raghuram, Vid. Parupalli Phalgun and Vid. Krishna. Had a great experience post concert where the two percussionists were discussing what happened in the concert and started singing Jathi together to clarify something! Both the flute and vocal were by artists who are geniuses in their own right. Another concert to remember!
I did miss three amazing concerts by Vid. Sunil Gargyan, The Vid. Ganesh-Kumaresh Violin and my favorite RaGa. Was sitting down doing Varushabdheegam in India and thinking of my friends here attending the RaGa concert. The aasthana photographer covered those events!
It was a an amazing season. The bay area has enough teachers and students and rasikas to keep us going!
That on the next post!
