Carnatic vocalist T. K. Govinda Rao and film historian Randor Guy participated at the inauguration. While Govinda Rao spoke about the increasing number of youth getting involved in Carnatic Music, Randor Guy spoke about the connection between South Indian Cinema and Classical Music. V. Ranjani Hebbar of Mysore opened the fest with a kutcheri.

The weekend featured two extra sessions in the morning. On Saturday, 'Beauty of sahitya in musical compositions' was taken up for a lecture demonstration by senior Carnatic vocalist Suguna Purushottaman. This was followed by a Harikatha by Vishaka Hariji. Young M R Subramaniam gave a vocal concert on Saturday evening.

It was time for fun on Sunday morning and the school students of Vidya mandir, PSBB (KK Nagar and Nungambakkam), Sivaswamy kalalaya, Kola Perumal responded wonderfully by conducting and participating in a variety of games related to Carnatic Music. The prizes were awarded to Vidya Mandir(I), PSBB, Main(II) and PSBB, KK Nagar(III). The concert featured that evening was by V Pradeep Kumar.

On Monday, a group of six students presented 10 rare songs of the trinity that were learnt from leading vocalist P. S. Narayanaswamy in a workshop held under the banner of YACM, earlier this year. This was followed by a veena recital of Bhavani Prasad.

The closing day events were presided over by Vidushi R. Vedavalli and mridangist Guruvayur Dorai. Both of them congratulated YACM for its work. The anniversary celebrations came to a close with the vocal concert of R Lakshmi.

The five-day fest had a good rasika turn out and was sponsored by The Hindu, Shriram Group Companies, Dalmia Cements, Madhya Kailash, G R Thangamaligai, Narayanan Chettiar and Charsur Digital Workstation.

Contact: Swarna Rethas, E-mail: rethas@gmail.com