5 Carnatic Musicians that hold the most promise.

5. B U Ganesh Prasad, a young violinist who has been making quite a few ripples in the music world. Trained in Bangalore, his skills were stepped up under the tutelage of Shri V.V.Subramaniam. Ganesh is a stock accompanist for the flute wizard Sashank, and also accompanies many leading vidwans during the various festivals. Ganesh’s style is faithful to the VVS bhani and he improvises this with his knowledge of vocal music. Tonal purity, fluid presentation and improvistaion is what set him apart.

4. A sophomore at Leland High School, Mohana Ramesh has been learning Carnatic Music since she was five under Smt. Jayashree Varadarajan’s guidance, who is behind the Sri Rama Lalitha Kala Mandir school of Fine Arts in Sunnyvale, California. She has proven to be a dedicated student and shows great promise.Mohana also studies Bharatanatyam under the guidance of Smt. Jayanthi Sridharan of Bharata Kalakuteeram.

3. Initiated into music at the tender age of 12, Mahesh Subramanian now learns the Mridangam from Shri Thiruvidaimarudur Sakaran. He has been awarded a schorship from the Government of India to pursue advanced training under Shri Sankaran. He continues to learn from the maestor Shri Guruvayur Dorai while undergoing training on the Kanjira from Shri. Mayavaram Somu. He is working currently as a Software engineer in Phoenix, Arizona having played the Mridangam and Kanjira for a number of instrumental, dance and jugalbandhi concerts.

2. Deepa and Divya Ramachandran are sisters who had their initial training on the violin.Under the guidance of Dr. Susheela Narasimhan they made the leap to carnatic music and continued their advanced training with Sri. Mullaivasal C. Chandramouli. They perform concerts either as accompanists or intheir famed violin duet which inclued concerts like Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival, Chennai Sabhas as well ’02 Winter Olympics Cultural Festival. Professionally, they are pursuing their engineering PhDs.

1. A 9th Grader at the Bret Harte Middle School in San Jose ,Vinay Ramesh has been a stdent of Carnatic Music since the young age of six under the tutelage of Smt. Jayashree Varadarajan. He was the lead singer in the 10 CD set called Bhakta Rasamrutam released by the Chinmaya Mission. Having participated and sang all 100 songs on the CDs has brought him a lot of acclaim. Alog with a prodigal vocalist, Vinay also learns the Mridangam.