VAIRAM ART FESTIVAL: Nadhamuni Gayatri Bharat’s novel way to help Chennai musicians in COVID distress

By Raj Natarajan

Nadhamuni Gayatri Bharat is an acclaimed Indian classical musician with unique artistic abilities. She practices and performs both Carnatic & Hindustani with consummate ease. A vocalist with a divine and mellifluous voice that attracts audiences from different spheres of life. She has had the greatest privilege of singing in the presence of the President of India, the Australian Prime Minister and the Indian Consulate General at the Mahatma Gandhi Statue unveiling ceremony in Sydney.

She recently inaugurated a ‘first of its kind’ virtual crowd-funding festival called the “Vairam Art festival” in memory of her late guru the legend Kalaimamani Vairamangalam Lakshminarayanan.

The festival which started on Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharatiyar’s 100^th anniversary combined many aspects of art including music lec-dem, musical renditions, dance lec-dem, dance performances, instrument renditions, layam and sorpozhivu. spread across 2 full days on 11^th and 12^th September 2021 by 100+ Australia based musicians & dancers.

This festival was hosted and streamed on an ott platform, and for the first time, an online ticketed event for such an array of performances by Oz based artists.

The festival was for a noble cause, to help upa-pakkavadhyma, pakkavadhyam Chennai musicians in their moments of financial and mental distress, due to COVID 19.

The line-up had a lot of firsts to its credit. To mention a few:

• Some of the most senior seasoned artists shared their rich knowledge about music through interesting topics like manodharmam aspects, history of cm, history of composers, conflicting notes, magical madhyam; all this in the program called rasanubhavam conceptualised by Australia’s senior musician Dr. Maraiyur S Ramanathan
• Sydney’s notable bharatanatyma dance teachers came together with very unique dance topics, in the program called Natyanubhavam, which was beautifully curated by Sydney based Bharatanatyam dancer ARuna Gandhi
• Various Australian based percussionists came together to share their knowledge as well as present brilliant solo performances in the program called Layam, which was amazingly co-ordinated by Sydney based Mridanga vidwan Sri. Sivakumar sethupathi, All Sydney based instrument musicians came together to share their renditions in the program called vadhyam which was wonderfully presented under the title melodic instruments in Carnatic music by Sydney based musician Sri. Mohan Ayyar.
• Around 60 Australia & NZ based vocalists came together to render compositions of 60 vageyakaras in the program called sangeetham which was conceptualised by Sydney’s senior vidushi Smt. Bhavani Govindan and NZ based musician and musicologist Vid. Dr. Padma Mallela.
• There was also a sorpozhivu on a topic called “bharatiyin kannamma” by famous sorpozhivalar Dr Chandrika Subramaniyan.

Vairam Art festival will not have been possible without the support of the team members namely DrMSR, Smt Bhavani, Smt Radhika Prasanna, Smt. Ramya Varadarajan, Smt. Lavanya Balasubramaniayn, Smt. Lakshmi Aiyer, Aruna Gandhi, Sri. Sivakumar Sethupathi, Sri Ramu Ayyar, and Sri. Balaji Jagannathan.

Gayatri opened the festival by singing one of Bharatiyar’s compositions, ethanai kodi inbam which she set to tune in the raag Mishra kamaj.

Gayatri’s vision on this artists helping project was to not just give an opportunity but to bring in the entire local artists community together and hence raise funds, which she successfully curated & executed. Total funds raised was 10,000 AUD which was a phenomenal achievement and a great tribute to her guru in whose memory this festival was organised.

Those who are interested in donating to this worthwhile cause, can still donate by visiting the web site: https://vairamartfestival.vhx.tv and once the ticket is purchased, the donor will receive an email from the tech team or the donor will be allowed to log in and start watching the fantastic music and dance presented by the well known Australian artists and choreographers.

Every dollar that the generous art lovers donate will help the Chennai musicians in easing their pain and suffering due to COVID 19 pandemic.