CHICAGO: With an all-round approval under its belt during its first audition a month ago at Ashyana Banquet in Downers Grove, the second round of Karaoke singing competition held by Chicago Indian Icon largely for hidden talents among Indian Americans in Chicagoland also met with huge success.
Launched by the Chicago-based company Indian Event Management Inc (IEM), the second of the three auditions on June 23 had contestants from different suburbs of Chicago, southern Illinois and neighboring states of Wisconsin and Indiana. The program was watched by thousands on the internet in real-time, in the United States and other regions of the world including India and Africa.
IEM President Brij Sharma along with his executive board and Chief Guest Sunil Shah, founder of FIA, started the opening ceremony by lighting the lamp. Brij Sharma was enthusiastic about the success of the first audition. “The magnanimous set up, the quality of participants, the feedback from judges, the interaction from master of ceremonies, attentive audience, and food was all raved about. But, this is just a shadow of what is coming in the future” he said.
The second audition brought even more caliber and talent as witnessed by the audience. Prasanjit Guptasarma, Pranjali Desai, Gautam Khanna, Praveen Jaligama, Pratik Munshi and Utpal Munshi were some of the favorites and received standing ovation. Another memorable moment was a kindergarten boy who sang his entire song without a glitch. It was so cute to see such young kids participating in the CII, a truly historic moment!
Pratibha Jairath, the Vice President of IEM, inspired the contestants and spoke about the wonderful mission. She said “We would not have been able to achieve this success if it wasn’t for our President Brij Sharma’s support”.
A unique focus is on Group Performance. Pratibha suggested the participants to present creative group items along with their friends so as to contribute to the judging criteria of ‘performance’ and ‘wow factor’. “It gives incomparable opportunity to get into semi-finals where audience voting counts for 50 percent of the scoring units. Bring all your friends to vote for you” she said.
In fact, at the second audition, when a group sang “Shola jo Bhadke” in Hawaiian outfits with straw hats and displayed expression and a few dance steps while they were singing, they not only received an enthusiastic applause from audience, but Nehali Dhutia, her father-in-law Bharat Dhutia and Subhash Singal team became a role model example for Group item presentation.
The beautifully lit CII trophy was displayed on the stage for everyone to see and continued true effort from the participants gets the person one step closer to winning the trophy, and being crowned the title of CII for the entire world to see. The professionally set up stage with the backdrop of images of the legendary Hindi musical icons, high tech cameras to capture and broadcast the events as they would take place, a hall that was acoustically optimal, all of these elements contributed to the making of an ideal place for such an event to take place here in Chicago, and the performers and the audience loved it!
The fire of musical-passion is rapidly engulfing many far and wide and the rumor has it that some people are planning to fly from Canada to take part in the third audition of CII. The actress Chinmayee Bhatt and TV personality Saurine Thakkar were the two beautifully dressed Emcees.
Raju Bankapur, director of entertainment and planning, walked the audience and participants through the format of the competition. Judges were Hitesh Master, Mani Majumdar, Richard Christian and Vaishali Dhande.
When viewing the group structure, there are nine different categories, namely, under 12 solo, solo male, solo female, duet, and the exciting category of group. There are two separate divisions namely, 13 to 30 and 30+ year age, thus comprising a menu list for the music lovers to choose from. Some take part in multiple categories expressing and displaying their musical singing talents in different dimensions.
Brij Shrama announced plans to replicate CII in New York, Atlanta, Los Angles, and San Francisco.
Asian Media USA & Suri Swamy
