By Pallavi Nagesha
For the rasikas of New England, and for that matter across the country, LearnQuest Music Festival evokes reverberations of joy and transcendence. LearnQuest has brought us delightful concerts for 25 years and to mark this eventful milestone, we announce a series of musical events that serves to delight and uplift the community. The LearnQuest@25 Concert Series features live concerts, streams, lecture-demonstrations, seminars on Hindustani, Carnatic, and world music.
To kick off the concert series we present a day long festival of Indian classical music, featuring both Carnatic and Hindustani genres. The inaugural concert is set to take place on Saturday, October 23rd, 2021 at The Cary Memorial Hall in Lexington. It features highly accomplished musicians from the Boston area as well as around the country. The repertoire includes both stalwart performers and talented student performers. The concert is a free and open to the public.
Hindustani artists include the Gwalior gharana vocalist Rachna Bodas from Texas, Sitarist Jawwad Noor, a LearnQuest faculty, Selina Banerjee (vocal), Jay Matrona (sitar) supported by Ramchandra Joshi on the Harmonium, Nitin Mitta, Rajesh Pai and Pranav Ghatraju on the Tabla. The Carnatic lineup includes the Veena artist and Guru Durga Krishnan, violinist KVS Vinay from Indiana, vocalists Shriya Srinivasan and Keerthi Isanaka supported by KVS Vinay on the violin and Gaurishankar Chandrashekhar, Abhinav Seetharaman and Varun Chandramouli on the mridangam. The veena-violin Carnatic ensemble will include a Taal-vaadya segment of mridangam and table by Gaurishankar Chandrashekhar and Rajesh Pai.
With this series we hope to break through the daunting weight of the pandemic and fill humanity with sweet, resonant music that brings light and delight. We hope to see all the connoisseurs of Indian classical music at the first of this musical offering from LearnQuest.
Our venue requires that all patrons be fully vaccinated and asks that the audience be masked at all times. Please bring a proof of vaccination and mask up! Let us enjoy a much-needed reprieve and heal through music while being socially responsible.
