News: Shodhan Prasad
Sharjah, Nov 17: Karnataka Sangha Sharjah will be celebrating its 14th annual programme on Friday, November 18 at Sharjah Indian Association Auditorium in a grand way from 4 pm onwards. The main attraction of this year’s event is UAE Level Singing Competition of which the final round will be conducted on stage and the winners will be honoured with ‘Mayura Raja’, ‘Mayura Rani’, ‘Mayura Kumara’ and ‘Mayura Kumari’ respectively.
The names and introduction of the finalist of both Children and Adult Categories are here below:-
Sannidhi Vishwanath Shetty
Daughter of well-known actor, director, singer-dancer Vishwanath Shetty and Usha Shetty is a 4th Std. student of Our Own English School is a born talent who at the tender age of one and half year had performed during ‘Chinnara Chilipili’ fancy dress event in the robe of Tribal Leader and was applauded. Later she exposed her talents in singing, dance and acting in bigger stage shows as her skills developed.
She won appreciations while she performed Bharatanatyam dance in UAE Bunts Annual Events, Sang bhajans during Samoohika Satyanarayana Pooja & Varalakshmi Pooja programmes and also won prize during the Abu Dhabi Karnataka Sangha’s Group Folk Dance Completion being the youngest dancer in the group. She also acted in a Tulu Stage Play titled ‘Yenku Maatherla Bodu’ and was applauded as the youngest actress on stage. Also she has won prizes in various fancy dress competitions held in her school.
Amoghvarsh Bhat
A 3rd std. student of D.P.S. School at the age of 9 is practicing Carnatic Music vocal, Percussion instrument (Mridangham) & Guitar. He has acclaimed great heights in his tender age and has participated in several stage shows including singing during 12th anniversary programme of Sharjah Karnataka Sangha, 2nd Kannada Sahitya Sammelan conducted by Dwaniprathistana, Basava Jayanti celebrations and also at Kannada Paata Shaale programme held in UAE.
Amoghvarsh’s interview was aired in Radio Spice 105.4 FM some time ago and also got his voiced songs ‘Haadu Santhoshakke’ and ‘Gaata Rahe Mera Dil’ aired in U.S. Radio Channel 1170 during their Dr. Raj Special Programme.
He won ‘Emerging Talent’ Award during the U.A.E. Big Idea Group’s ‘Amazing Stars 2015’ Contest held in UAE. In school too he won ‘Teams Idol’ & ‘Song Bird’ & ‘Golden Star’ Awards for singing in various occasions as a youngest talented singer.
Sindhu Satish Kamath
Daughter of Satish and Dhanlakshmi Kamath hailing from Udupi-Karkala is a student of Indian School Dubai studying in 8th std. Since four years she is practicing Hindustani vocal with guru Subodh Godbole though earlier she was trained by the late Chitra Gosh. She has been winning prizes in interschool singing competitions for the past 4 years continuously.
She also won prizes for Group Dance, Hindi Elocution, Handicrafts Competition and Singing competition held by UAE Amchigele Samaj.
With daily chanting of rhymes, shlokas in Kannada, Hindi, Marathi & Sanskrit specially during the prayers she has improved her vocal cord for singing thus attaining appreciations wherever she performed.
Akshatha P Rao
Her talent for singing was identified when she was just studying in 2nd std. school where she won second prize for singing during the competitions. This encouraged her singing and she took up the challenge and she participated more and more in the School and Inter-school singing competitions winning more awards.
In the year 2010 she participated in a singing competition held by Radio Channel which was directly voted by the listeners and won first runner-up in Dubai, In 2012 she sang a duo with well-known Music Director Guru Kiran during a stage show, In 2013 & 2016 she sang with well-known singers on ‘Dhoom Damaka’ stage shows held in Dubai and won appreciations.
However in the year 2014 she was identified and given an opportunity for play back singing in Shodhan Prasad’s first International Tulu Film ‘Nirel’ which not only made her a singing star of silver screen but also achieved worldwide fame with more than one and a half lakh viewership in ‘You tube’ social media for her recorded melodious singing of ‘Serunaga’ song. She also got nominated for Best Play back singing Award during the ‘Tulu Cinemotsava Awards’ along with the great singers Anuradha Bhat & Chitra. The opportunities started availing in very many movies especially with Loku Kudla’s Tulu short film ‘Bolkir’ & another movie ‘Parba’ singing duo with well-known singer Ramesh Chandra & in 2015 she got another Tulu Film ‘Yekka Saka’ in which her song became more famous.
She has attained ‘Sangeetha Bhushan’ and Virasat’ training in Hindustani Music through the legend Suresh Wadkar’s School in Mumbai.
Madhura Vishwanath
An Engineering graduate by profession, Madhura is daughter of famous Vidwan Madhoor V. Raghuram and has achieved training from her guru father himself mainly in Carnatic music. Thus gaining education in all forms of vocal singing systematically was a blessing for her since her early age. With her melodious voice, she later presented various musical events in different parts of India prior to her gulf residency. She has been felicitated in various programmes and events all through and also had presented herself in television shows too. Some of her songs were recorded on CD and were distributed worldwide which gained more fame for herself.
She has presented many musical evenings in Dubai too and has sung in very many Pooja programmes conducted in Dubai especially during the Vara Mahalakshmi Pooja, Satyanarayana Pooja and other community gatherings and won appreciations.
Vaishnavi Arun Shetty
Daughter of Narayan & Kavitha Shetty, Vaishnavi did her schoolings in Coorg District of Karnataka and then completed her College in St. Aloysius College, Mangalore and later attained MBA through Sreenivas Institute of Technology. Currently Vaishnavi is serving with JK Tyres.
Trained under the famous classical singer Vidhushi Nirmala Bopanna of Coorg with her interest in vocal singing from the early ages, she reached the peak in her college days participating in Folk Song, Bhajan & Filmi Song district level competitions, receiving accolades and winning several prizes.
Her melodious songs aired on radio received appreciations from the listeners very many times.
She has been patted with best singer during some of her presentations in the UAE. Samoohika Satyanarayana Pooja, UAE Bunts Events, Vara Mahalakshmi Pooja were some of the events were she had rendered her voice and attained appreciations. She has also won in several singing competitions and awarded prizes.
Recently she was one of the melodious singers in the winning group who participated in ‘UAE level singing competition’ arranged by Abu Dhabi Karnataka Sangha during the Rajyotswava day celebrations in Abu Dhabi.
Raghavendra
A Bangalorean by birth was gifted with singing as his mother and grandmother were born singers. Born in a musical family he was able to attain all forms of training in singing and music from his early age. Being gifted with lovely voice, he had achieved many prizes during his school and college days during the competitions.
‘Best Singer’ from Christ College, Bits Pilani, and National Law School one after another were some of his achievements during his college days competitions. He got the honour singing for ‘Akka Sammelan’ in Baltimore with accolades and appreciations.
Currently serving for a multi-national Oil & Gas company, Raghavendra is surely blessed with a rare voice quality.
Krishna Prasad Rao
Hailing from the coastal land of rich Tulu Nadu is Krishna Prasad born to Janardhan Rao & Shyamala Rao who got interested in music, art and literature from the young age. All through his school and college days he practically participated in various singing competitions and won awards and prizes. To mention he received runner-up in Dharmastala Manjunatheshwara Yakshotsava event.
Seldom someone shows interest in Yakshagana Art and Krishna Prasad is one of them who has attained training through the famous Maambadi Subrahmanya Bhat, Girish Navada & Deepak Pejavar respectively. He learnt Yakshagana Percussion (Chende, Mridanga etc.) & Chakra Tala too. He is an enthusiastic actor who performed in various acts of Yakshagana, characterizing various characters with colorful face and costumes. He has won several prizes during the singing competitions and special to mention that he won runner-up in Sharjah Karnataka Sangha’s ‘Mayura Raja’ singing competition some years ago.
Every year he participates in Yaksha Mithraru UAE’s Yakshagana Presentation both in foreground and background stage and have won appreciations, accolades and fans.
His apt supporter is his wife Vidwan Ranjani Rao who is a trained classical singer as well as a Bharatanatyam dancer herself who encourages Krishna Prasad with leads and guidance.
Shahid Shabaj
From the colourful coastal world of Karwar-Kumta hails Shahid born to Mohammed Akvil Khazi and Farida Akvil is a first class B.Sc., graduated from Kumta Government College. Well known Qawali singer himself, had won several prizes during the school and college competitions especially with first prize. This lead to his singing career development and won first prizes in State level singing competitions.
Won Gold Medals twice during 2010 & 2012 Mysore Dasara Singing Competitions and attained fame. He is the winner of open to all Danube ‘Voice of UAE’ singing competition held in Dubai.
His interview was published in Daily Mirror News Paper of Sri Lanka during his Sri Lanka Tour Singing Competition.