Honours at Goenkan Gandeur

A group of 12 students of classes IX to XII participated in a semi-classical music competition (solo & group) at the annual Gayatri Devi Goenka Memorial Cultural Festival at G.D. Goenka Public School, Vasant Kunj on 27th April 2016. They were escorted by their teachers, Ms. Prakriti Pattanayak and Mr. Siddharth Dalbehra to the competition.

The competition showcased a range of semi-classical forms such as the thumri, dadra, chaiti, kajri and jhoola.

Our performance commenced with Ustaad Bade Ghulam Ali Khans great composition Yaad piya ki aye, a thumri by Shivangini Sharma of class X. She was accompanied on the harmonium by Chinmaya Iyer of class XII and on the tabla by Sanatan Shrivastava of class XI. The percussion was lent by Vadish Kardam of class X.

Our second entry was the kajri, Barsan laagi badariya. This was sung by a group of 10 students: Dhriti Chatterjee (IX), Jai Kapur (IX), Ananya Sahdev (IX), Milanpreet Kaur (X), Shivangini Sharma, Saruby Sharma (XI), Bedanto Sen (XI), Gaurav Prasad (XI) and Chinmaya Iyer. They were accompanied on the harmonium by Sharanya Sai of class X and on the tabla by Sanatan Srivastava. Percussion was by Vadish Kardam.

The jury included Pandit Prateek Chaudhary, famous sitarist and Dr. Ira Mukherjee, a Dhrupad exponent. 14 schools participated in the event and we are proud to announce that our team took the 1st position in both the solo and group categories! Prizes were also awarded for extraordinary individual performances. Sanatan Shrivastava (tabla) and Vadish Kardam (percussion) took the awards!

We were delighted to listen to the special appreciation offered by the jury for our performance. We were particularly proud to carry back our honours to School.

Sanatan Srivastava.