I have been postponing the uploading of these links for a long time now. My apologies are due on this front. This year as usual the Kanara Saraswat Association organised its event and there was a tremendous response. This is the same stage where great artistes like Pt.Ravishankar have done their earlier performances and the association has a reputation of being patrons of indian music.

We are posting some of the best performances here on radio idli.

Sunil Kamath won the first prize for his rendition of jiya dhadak Dhadak in the light music category which is an open event without any restrictions on age groups.

Sunil Kamath has in fact been one of the regular contributors to our radio idli blog and his talent has been well appreciated.

Abhang Gulvady: Abhang is not new to radio idli circles. He has been voted the most popular member of the idli group and is a proficient tabla player. This time however along with doing the official tabla players duty for the competition Abhang decided to exhibit his skills at singing.

Prajakta Shanbhag: Her rendition of the song payoji maine ram ratan dhan paayo was good enough for her to win a prize in the devotional songs competition this year. Do I need to say anything more than this………….

Kalyani Hemmady: This school going girl has been getting trained in classical music from the great Pandit Murli Manohar Shukla maam another great saraswat. Her control over the sur, the lay and the taal is a reflection of her proficiency in the art of singing.

Sunil Kamath again !!

Sunil Kamath also participated in the devotional singing competition where he made a star performance but could not win a prize due to the quality of the performance.

Nagesh Pai : Our own Nagesh pai is not a mean singer either. His choice of the bhajan Vrindavani Venu was also very apt for the competition. The tonal quality of his voice and his feel of the song was good enough for this performance to be rated amongst the star performances for the evening.

Kaivalya Nadkarni: Kaivalya Nadkarni is also a school going girl with a great voice and is getting trained in classical music. No wonder that at this age she could enthrall the crowd with her bhajan and won a prize in her age group for the devotional music competition.

Dhruv Dhareshwar : Both of Dhruvs parents are accomplished musicians in their own right. However Dhruv is very young ( all of 5 years) yet he had the guts to go on stage and sing this song for the devotional music competition.

His style and composure on stage even at this tender age is a sight to behold and is sure to grow up into a showman.

Vaishnavi Balwalli Vaishnavi is one more of the talents that is growing up in Talmakiwadi and had the whole audience enthralled with her bhajan that we are uploading for your pleasure.

Rupak Vaze: Yes the song that he sung was not in the rupak taal but he made the audience wave to his tunes. His performance was again one of the star performances for the evening.

The filming has been done on a VHS camera and hence the quality of the output is not that great. We apologise for the same. Also there would be certain sounds of the audience etc in the background. But we are sure that since we are a group of amateurs doing voluntary efforts, the same would be accepted.

We have endeavoured to make radio idli great for all its listeners and keen followers of the concept. There have been many people working overtime to collect content for the whole show and for this effort to go on smoothly without any huge gaps. However, since this KSA event was my home event I am uploading the same personally as this is an emotional issue for me and I have been personally involved in the organizing of the event successfully. We thank the Kanara Saraswat Association (KSA) for supporting our endeavour and permitting us to use the clippings of the event on radio idli.

Kanara Saraswat Association is the premier socio cultural organisation of the Chitrapur saraswat community and is based in Talmakiwadi. It has always been in the forefront of encouraging hindustani classical music and also other cultural causes like the Konkani literature etc. KSA is organising a week long Konkani Sahitya saptaha slated to be held sometime in May 2008 in Mumbai and we look forward to everyones cooperation in making this huge event a success. We shall post more details of the same as and when we receive them.