About the Sishya

Adithi Viswanathan

Adithi Viswanathan is a rising senior at Amador Valley High School. Learning Bharathanatyam for the past 12 years, Adithi began her training at the age of 5 from Smt. Deepa Rajamani. Over the years, Adithi has performed at numerous community events and was awarded 1st place in the senior solo padam category at the Papanasam Sivan Competition. Her journey in dance has deepened her appreciation for Indian arts and culture.

In addition to Bharathanatyam, Adithi has been training in Carnatic Vocal from Dr. Uthra Rajamani and Carnatic Veena from Sri Rajan Vaidheeswaran. She enjoys playing the viola and harp as part of her school’s orchestra. Outside of music and dance, her hobbies include painting, writing, and reading.

About the Guru

Smt. Deepa Rajamani

Smt. Deepa Rajamani is the Artistic director of Srilaya School of Dance. She is a devoted dancer and an experienced and enthusiastic teacher. Her training in both Thanjavur and Vazhuvoor styles of Bharathanatyam gives her dance a crispness and precision in jathi Korvais as well as a smooth flow of expressions that matches the mood of the song. She believes Bharathanatyam can be both fun to learn and fulfilling when realized with perfection. Her interest in Bharathanatyam was initiated by her Guru Sri. Krishna Kumar at the age of 10 and she has ever since been involved with this beautiful art form. She has continued her dance training under Smt. Poornima Risbud, and now with Smt. Jothi Raghavan.

About the Orchestra

Smt. Uthra Rajamani

Dr. Uthra Rajamani is a carnatic vocalist from Chennai now residing in Los Angeles. She has been learning music from the age of three. She had her initial music training from Smt. Parvathi Raman in Chennai, advance training under the tutelage of the Bombay Sisters. She has also taken lessons from Vidwan Sri T.K. Govinda Rao.

Uthra had performed at various Sabhas including the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Naada Inbam, Chennai Fine Arts, Thirumala Thirupathi Devasthanams, Mylapore Fine Arts, Indian Fine Arts Society among others. She had vocally supported her Gurus, the Bombay Sisters in the December Music Festival in Chennai. Uthra had anchored musical shows for television channels. Smt. Uthra hosted breakfast shows on Doordarshan-Podhigai.

Uthra has featured in the Thyagaraja festival in Durban 2008, Trinity concert in WITS auditorium Johannesburg and at the prestigious ArtsCape Theatre, Cape Town.

Uthra had performed at Pittsburgh Venkateshwara temple, the Vedanta Society of Southern California, Sri Panchamukha Hanuman temple, ISKCON Janmashtami concert series and many more. Her Awards and accolades include Papanasam Sivan Award by the Sivan Arts Academy, Bhadrachalam Ramadas Award by the Music Academy for two consecutive years , Mylapore Fine Arts Club, Indian Fine Arts Society. She was also awarded a special recognition award for her achievement, special contribution to arts and culture to promote role models for the South African Society at IKUSASA youth expo and awards.

Uthra is founder of Swaralaya School of Music in Los Angeles.

Smt. Sandhya Srinath

Sandhya is an innately talented artist who showcases her true talent in every bow! A gold medalist in her masters program in music and an early A-grade awardee for the All India Radio, Sandhya has firmly established the school of Late Shri V. Janakiraman of AIR, Delhi. She learnt, and skillfully absorbed the styles of maestros, late Shri. Lalgudi G Jayaraman and Prof. T.N. Krishnan within her. With over 50 years of performances, and along with top solo performances worldwide, she has also accompanied many senior musicians and dancers. Some of her coveted awards include the Best Young Violinist, Music Academy, Chennai, India; Individual Artist Award from both PG Arts Council and the Maryland State Arts Council. Sandhya has also received titles such as Naada Brahma Kala Bhooshanam, Naada Brahma Kalai Mani, Vaadhya Kala Bhaarathi, Kala Shreshtha and Paramparaa Rakshak. She has numerous recordings to her credit and her versatility has led her to take on instrumental ensembles, jugalbandis with Hindustani artists, and fusion concerts with western musicians. Known for her sensitive renditions and scintillating artistry, she is a very highly sought after artist. She also actively teaches Violin to students all over the US.

Visit http://sandhyastrings.com/ for further information and clips.

Sri Srinath Bala

He is a versatile percussionist with varied styles blended rhythmically into one! Having been initiated by Late Sri. Krishnan (Palghat Sri Mani Iyer style), he received intensive guidance under Sri. R. Ramesh (Karaikudi Mani Style) in Chennai, and later, under Maestro Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman.

To his credit, he has uniquely combined the kannakku and naadam aspects from various gurus. He has accompanied the topmost senior artists performing in India, Canada, Zambia, Singapore and the US, and also played in Jugalbandis and TalaVadya Concerts to showcase the solo percussion aspects. He has various recordings and has given lecture- demonstrations on 'LAYAM'. In 2006, he presented a TalaVadya concert titled “Music Through Membranes”. Being a recipient of the PG Arts award, MSAC Artist Awards, and titles ‘Kala Shreshtha’ and ‘Paramparaa Rakshak’, he has over 30 years of concert experiences and is an extremely well sought after artist for Music and Dance Concerts. He has been teaching students for many years and successfully trained many students, who currently play Mridangam, Ghatam, and Kanjira actively in various music circles.

Visit http://srinathlayam.com/ for more information and clips

Chi. Sumanth Ganapathi

Sumanth Ganapathi Basavapatna is a rising junior undergraduate at UC Berkeley, studying Data Science. His guru is Vid. Sandhya Srinath, and he has also learnt from Vid. Kanchana Shriranjani and Vid. Shreyas Bharadwaj in the past. He completed his music arangetram in August 2022 with his sister Aparna. Sumanth has performed around the Bay Area and has accompanied dance recitals before. Other than his music and academics, he enjoys working with classical Sanskrit literature and visual art. Sumanth also recently completed Mahayaavanam, his own creative retelling of The Iliad in Sanskrit, which spans over two thousand verses in different meters in length. He is also a passionate sculptor.