Event Date
Carnatic Vocals by Sikkil C. Gurucharan
Accompanied by Shruti Sarathy (Violin), Ajay Gopi (Mridangam), & Vardhinee Prakash (Tanpura)
In Sanskrit, the word bijam means seed and grain, and by extension, origin, cause, and the germinal element. With the musical notes as bijam (seed), Sikkil Gurucharan's concert will cultivate for our audience a broad appreciation of south Indian theories of cultivation--of the land, of music, of taste, and of the self.
Sikkil C. Gurucharan is Artist in Residence at the UC Davis Humanities Institute, Spring 2023. This concert is part of that residency.
Sikkil C. Gurucharan is a leading musician and a youth ambassador for Carnatic music. A prime time artist during the Chennai music season and a recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar Award, Kalaimamani and Tchaikovsky Award for the best musician of the year among many, Gurucharan has not only made a mark in the traditional concert paddhati style but also worked to broaden audience appeal by creating collaborative projects with world renowned musicians while retaining the spirit of the art form. In 2015, Gurucharan received a Nehru-Fulbright Excellence Award, and was in residence at UC Davis between January and April 2015.
The album “Miles from India”, a collaborative effort, was nominated for the Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the 51st Grammy Awards. The magazine India Today featured him among 35 Game Changers under the age of 35 in India. The Tamil Nadu Government conferred its highest honour of Kalaimamani on Gurucharan in 2020. He has also acted in two Tamil movies, Sarvam Thala Mayam and Putham Pudhu Kaalai.
Sruti Sarathy is a leading Carnatic violinist, singer, and composer. A rare artist who possesses both mastery in the rigorous classical form as well as a boundary-pushing musical vision, she animates the stage in diverse contexts across the globe, from the sabhas of Chennai to music festivals in San Francisco.
Sruti began her training as a prodigious three-year old. She is a student of Guru Anuradha Sridhar of the Lalgudi family of musicians. Sruti regularly performs with top Carnatic musicians, and has received awards three years in a row for her performances at the prestigious Madras Music Academy.
A Bay Area native and Stanford University alumnus, Sruti is also a versatile composer for Carnatic, crossover, dance/film/theater, and experimental new music contexts. She formed the ensemble Carnatic Crossings, is part of the Carnatic trio Unfretted, and along with Roopa Mahadevan, leads the Songs for Many Lives: A Carnatic Diaspora Songbook project. She is a Fulbright scholar and has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo and OneBeat. Sruti’s soulful sound brings out the voice of the Indian violin in a contemporary and imaginative way.
Ajay is a disciple of his father, Sri. Gopi Lakshminarayanan, and Sri. Kallidaikurichi Sivakumar.
Ajay regularly performs in various organizations in the USA such as Hamsadhwani, Lotus, Maarga, SFRA, and SIFA for local and visiting musicians. Ajay has also been regularly performing in the Chennai December Season festival in many reputed sabhas for the past few years. Ajay has performed at the Madras Music Academy as part of the Spirit of Youth and HCL concert series. Ajay also learns Carnatic Vocal and he is currently learning from Sri. Kolkata Vijayaraghavan. Ajay is a graduate of UC Berkeley and is a software engineer in Silicon Valley.
Vardhinee has been a student of Carnatic vocal music for the last 18 years. She began her training with her paternal grandmother Smt. Shyamala Dandapani and is currently receiving advanced training under Kalaimamani Sri Sikkil C. Gurucharan. Vardhinee has given many concerts around the Bay Area and in India as well. She graduated from UC Davis in 2021 and works in the tech industry as a public relations professional.