CHICAGO: It was dream come true for many a classical Indian music lover when maestro Ilaiyaraaja made a live presentation with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra from Hungary and Indian classical musicians on Saturday March 24 at the Naperville Yard Center in Naperville, a south side suburb of Chicago
The 55 musicians, 10 singers and the one legend gave a spectacular performance that rocked music lovers in Midwest. Cloud9 Events organized the concert that enthralled an audience of 4000 plus. The live concert was performed by singers Chithra, Mano, Haricharan and Rahul Nambiar. They were accompanied by a talented orchestra of 50 musicians. They performed a total of 39 songs in both Tamil and Telugu.
Ilaiyaraaja’s acumen and knowledge of the aesthetics of music and cinema is what sets him apart from the rest. He is a multifaceted artist and has composed over 6000 songs and worked for 1000 movies. Raaja, as he is popularly known and affectionately called, comes from a family of musicians and in 2010 he received the Padma Bhushan award which is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India.
The living legend paid an emotional tribute to his audience by singing over 35 songs at the concert included “Jananijanani – Thai Mookambigai”, “Om sivoham – Naankadavul”, “Jagadhanandhakaaraka- Telugu”, “Ram ramsalame ram ram-Hey Ram”, “Malaiyilyaaro- Kshathriyan”, and so on.
K. S. Chithra or simply Chithra, is an Indian playback singer from Kerala. Chithra also sings Indian classical, devotional, and popular music. She has also sung in Urdu, Latin, Arabic, Sinhalese and English. She has recorded over 25,000 songs for various films and music-albums. Another popular singer, Nagoor Babu popularly known as Mano, entertained the audience with his melodious voice. Mano is a playback singer, voice-over artist, actor, producer, anchor and music composer. Haricharan comes from a family of music connoisseurs and started learning music at the early age of seven.
Cloud9 Events is a group of passionate individuals working together to organize events to promote Indian culture and heritage overseas with the goal of bringing entertainment to the Chicago Indian community.
Suresh Bodiwala
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