Sankaran Namboothiry in the US (Oct-Nov '08)

Los Angeles, Nov 14, 2008: The ebbs and flows of musical careers are well-known. It is not rare for music lovers to be excited of a prodigious performer making an early impact, only for them to be disappointed later about a less than satisfying career. Then there are the pleasant experiences when they see a later resurgence of a musician that makes them sit up and take note once again. Such is the case with Sri. Sankaran Namboothiry, who enthralled the audiences around the country recently with a four-week 10-city tour of the USA with delectable Karnatic concerts that left a mark. KHNA takes this occasion to acknowledge the excellent support by the Malayali community around the country who made the tour happen.

Most malayalees remember the artist as "Master Sankaran Nampoothiry" and many may have noticed him recently also for receiving the best playback singer award for songs in the movie "Nivedhyam" He is well known as one of the most noted child prodigies to emerge over two decades back, when he became the youngest-ever All India Radio grade-A artist and had the high honor of performing for the President of India at the age of 11. It may not be fair to say that his career regressed during the 90s; however, an extended period of education and a further period of maturation as a musician meant that Sri Namboothiry was not as much in the news till the recent few years. The wait was worthwhile for music fans, as amply demonstrated at his sublime concerts during the tour that took the 36 year old through the following places between Oct 18th and November 10th: Memphis (TN), Alabama, Washington (DC), Cincinnati (OH), Columbus (OH), Atlanta (GA), Detroit (MI), Lexington (KY), San Francisco (CA) and Los Angles (CA).

Such successful tours of Kerala musicans are a rarity rather than a norm, however. Classical Music lovers in the malayali community in the continent know fully well the difficulties in the past of bringing top-notch artists from Kerala for performances. Very often the organizers of past tours had to run from pillar to post and beg for support from other communities, while the malayali community often showed apathy. It is perhaps also true that many interested people in our community did not even hear of the programs or about the artists' tour pans due to very poor networking in our community. It is in this regard that organizations such as KHNA can play a very useful role. It was gratifying to see several KHNA volunteers and regional coordinators taking an active part in the recent tour by Sri Sankaran Namboothiry.

Sri Vasudevan Nampoothiri of Cincinnati was instrumental in scheduling the tour, on advice from his mrudangam guru, Sri. Palghat Rajamani. The visa sponsorship paperwork for the tour were organized by the KHNA Jont Secretary, Sri Nishanth Nair (New York), to get the ball rolling. Thanks to the increased networking among the Malayali Hindu community, requests for concerts came from several places and some places such as New York and Austin, TX, were unable to get tour dates, which shows the enthusiasm from various places. In the last weekend before his scheduled departure, Sri. Sankaran Nampoothory travelled from Michigan to Kentucky to California and performed four concerts, with the current KHNA headquarters organization (Organization of Hindu Malayalees) only managing to squeeze in a Monday night concert literally 2 hours before the artist caught a plane to India!

It is worthwhile to acknowledge several of the KHNA folks who worked to make the tour successful. KHNA Joint Secretary Nishanth Nair (New York), KHNA Regional coordinators M.G. Menon (Washinton, DC), Binu Panicker (Detroit), Rajeev Menon (Atlana), Regional VP Manoj Empranthiry (San Francisco), KHNA director Ravi Vellatheri and Trustee R. Jayakrishnan (Los Angeles), etc were active organizers for the programs. The tour organizers informed KHNA of several others who were key organizers, such as Mr. Lakshman Mahadevan (Memphis, TN), Dr. Shanmughan (Alabama), Dr. Krishnan Namboodiri (Washington DC), Prof. Ranga Vemuri (Cincinnati, OH), Pradeep Ramachandran (Columbus, OH), Sathish Menon (Atlanta, GA), Jayashankar Balan (Detroit, MI), Mr. Sujan Balachandran (Lexington, KY), Hari Kodungalloor and Babu Nampoothiri (San Francisco).

"Supporting artists from Kerala who can help in strengthening the cultural roots of the Malayali Hindu community and specifically our youth, is a very worthwhile goal of KHNA. We hope to continue to help such activities in the future as well," said KHNA President Dr. Ramadas Pillai (Los Angeles).