LOTUS Jan 2012 monthly concert

Junior Concert #1: 2:00 to 2:45 PM

Geeta Shankar (Vocal)

Divya Mohan (violin)

Ajay Gopi (Mridangam)

Junior Concert #2: 3:00 to 3:45 PM

Vocal Duet by Kavitha Kumar & Geetha Abhay (Junior)

Ramprasad (violin)

Santhosh Karuhatty (Mridangam)

Junior Concert #1: Geetha Shankar (Junior) - 2:00 to 2:45 PM

Geeta Shankar (vocal)

Geeta Shankar is a 6th grader in Weibel Elementary. She has been learning vocal since the tender age of 4 1/2 for the past 7 years, She is currently under their tutelage of Shri Neyveli R. Santhanagopalan after her initial guidance from Sri. Santhanagopalan Sir's students Sri.Hari Devanath, and Smt. Nandini Ramamoorthy. Geeta has won many awards in Cleveland Aradhana, local competitions such as OSAAT, Papanasam Sivan Day and NadaNritya. She was recently awarded the title of Carnatic Idol Junior USA 2011 conducted by JayaTV Maximum Media here in the Bay area. She has been learning veena under Sri. Srikanth Chary. Other than vocal music and veena, she enjoys playing chess, badminton, and is a Girl Scout. She is the Secretary of Weibel's student council. In Geeta's spare time she likes listening to music, reading, writing and writing poems.

Divya Mohan (violin)

Divya is learning violin from Dr Saravanapriyan Sriram, a disciple of Sri Lalgudi GJR Krishnan, for the past 7 years. She also feels blessed to take lessons from Guru Lalgudi Sri GJR Krishnan himself, since Summer 2011. She has given a violin solo performance at Nandalala Mission Youth Concert series and has accompanied many upcoming and mature talent in the bay area. Divya also learns vocal music from Guru Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan and recently did her arangetram in Chennai. She has participated and won prizes in both vocal and violin categories in various competitions including Cleveland Aradhana.

Ajay Gopi (mrdangam)

Ajay Gopi is a eighth grader at Horner Junior High in Fremont, CA. Ajay is learning Mridangam for past 3 years from his father Sri. Gopi Lakshminarayanan, a disciple of Late Shri. Kumbakonam NarayanaSwamy Iyer. Ajay has accompanied several talented young students from many music schools at various music festivals and events. Ajay also learns vocal from Uma Radhika, one of the Chinmaya sisters.

Junior Concert #2: Vocal Duet by Kavitha Kumar & Geetha Abhay (Junior) - 3:00 to 3:45 PM

Kavitha Satheesh (vocal)

Kavitha Satheesh was exposed to Carnatic Classical music during her early ages itself while she was in Kerala,Inida. She had learned the basics of carnatic music from Sri Krishnan Master and later from Sri Padmanabhan Master. She had the privilege of learning music under Pndt.Ramesh Narayanan for a brief period. After moving to US, Kavitha has been learning music under Smt. Padmaja Kishore, Director of Gana Mandir Fine Arts in San Jose. She had represented Gana Mandir and performed on number of occasions at various venues in Bay Area including Sanatana Dharma Kendra, Badrikashrama, Shiva -Vishnu Temple- Livermore, SIFA and KKNC. She was part of the winning team where they bagged two times first prize and once second place in the Natya Raaga competition organized by OSAAT.

Geeta Abhay (vocal)

Geeta Abhay has been learning Carnatic Vocal Music since a very young age from respected musicians including HN Meera and Nagavalli Nagaraj in Bangalore. Currently, she is under the tutelage of her Guru Smt. Padmaja Kishore, Director of Gana Mandir Fine Arts, San Jose.

She has participated in several competitions including Papanasam Sivan festival and OSAAT. Most recently, she was part of the team that won the first prize at the Naatya Raaga Music competition conducted by OSAAT. She has given performances at various events and venues like SIFA Thyagaraja Araradhana, Badrikkashram, LOTUS Trinity Day, India Community Center, Sanatana Dharma Kendra, Shiva-Vishnu Temple, and KKNC. Geeta has taken a sabbatical from her work in the IT industry to be with her two children. She is an active volunteer in the classroom and in school activities.

Ramprasad (violin)

Ramprasad started learning violin during his school days from Sri Narasimhulu in Chennai. He then took advanced lessons from Smt. Vijaya Prabhakar in Phoenix and Sri L. Arvind in Sunnyvale. He has performed

in several music programmes in the bay area, and was part of a 25- violin ensemble that performed during the Music season in Chennai. Ramprasad is a hardware engineer and works in a high technology firm

in San Jose.

Santhosh Karuhatty (Mridangam)

Santhosh Karuhatty is from Mysore originally and is working in Bay Area for the last 7 years. He learnt Mridangam from B. R. Sridhar and Shiv Shankar while in Mysore. After completing his BE from Mysore university, he came to United States do MS in computer science in the year 2000. Currently working as a software engineer at IBM, he continues to keep his hands busy on Mridangam by accompanying various artists in Bay Area from past 4 years. Santhosh Karuhatty loves percussion instruments and is trying to improve on it constantly.