Durga Krishnan is a graduate of Carnatic Music College of India with a degree and Teacher & certificate in Carnatic music.
She has been teaching and promoting Carnatic music in the Boston area for the last 3 decades.
She is also one of the primary disciples of the legendary veena artist the late Dr. Chittibabu.

She is co-ordinator for the Chinmaya Mission Cultural activities.

Kala Saurabhi Dance School teaches Bharatanatyam in the traditional pedagogy and is a research academy spreading awareness of and documenting the history and sacred aesthetics of this timeless art. Apart from teaching and performing Bharatanatyam, Founder and Director, Prakruti Prativadi is a research scholar who has presented papers on Bharatanatyam and the Natyashastra at scholarly conferences worldwide including, the Swadeshi Indology Conference at IIT Madras and World Association for Vedic Studies. Prakruti has also published two books on the aesthetics of the Natyashastra and Bharatanatyam.

Sujatha Meyyappan is a very well known dancer in this area who has had several successful arangetrams and has been part of many fundraiser programs in the area, including Vision Aid. She has also produced thematic dance programs by her students to glorious reviews.

Young and talented Amit Kavthekar (“GANDA-BANDH SHAGIRD” of Late Ustad Allarakha) has rhythm running in his veins. At the early age of six, he was being groomed in the art of playing tabla by the legendary Ustad Allarakha. He has also been fortunate enough to be taught tabla intricacies by Ustad Zakir Hussain – a maestro in Indian classical music, an international phenomenon in the fields of percussion and world music.

Amit has played with many eminent Indian Classical Musicians such as Ustad Zakir Hussain and Sivamani on Zee TV in India, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan at Google Talks, Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan at Berklee College of Music, Ustad Ashish Khan at Learnquest Festival at Regis College MA, Pt. Buddhadev Dasgupta in Baithak, Boston MA, Pt. Kushal Das at MIT, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma in his Documentary directed by Jabbar Patel in India, Pt. Jasraj in his vocal recital in Pune India and many others. Recently, Amit played at the United Nations Day Concert 2018 with Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Ayaan Ali Bangash and Amaan Ali Bangash as well as with the Refugee Orchestra project.

Amit has frequent collaborations with western classical, jazz and fusion musicians – He is a member of the Purnalokha quartet along with David Balakrishnan of the grammy winning Turtle Island Quartet. He has also played with the Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra and is also a founder member of the band Sawaari, which explores music from different parts of the world.

Recently, Amit started working with renowned and one of the best Jazz guitar player Al Di Meola and now he is the integral part of Al Di Meola acoustic trio Project. Amit is currently teaching Tabla in the New England School of Music based in Massachusetts. He also teaches master classes and workshops in universities.

Naad Sadhana: Harmonium & Hindustani Raag Classes
Where: Chinmaya Mission Boston
When: Sundays 12:15-1:15pm, begins January 28th 2024

What will you learn?
You’ll learn to play well, sing in tune, recognize melodies and rhythmic patterns. You’ll develop a practical understanding of raga (melody) and tala (rhyth). You’ll learn to sing in sargam, and study alaap, bandishes, alankars & improvisation in the context of various ragas. Classes will be taught by a recent addition to Andover, Dr.Igor Iwanek, award winning composer and a student of Padmashree Kala Ramnath and Pt. Sudhiir Nayak. Dr. Igor teaches western classical music at Boston University and MIT and has 20+ years of teaching experience. More at Thinkartmusic

Interested? Please tell me about yourself by filling out this short form:

FAQ
1.Do I need a harmonium for this class?
Yes, eventually you’ll need your own instrument but initially we’ll focus on developing the musical ear and work vocally first. So there will be time to get the instrument.

2.I’m a beginner | I’m not a beginner – will this class be good for me?
Yes – if need be, we’ll organize separate sections for students with previous training and beginners in music. Please fill out the short questionnaire above to tell me about yourself.

3.I’m not really interested in harmonium playing but am interested in ragas Should I still come?
Yes, you will still learn a lot – Hindustani tradition is primarily vocal, which means that before playing anything, we first need to learn how to sing it. So we’ll work with the voice a lot.

Sahana Venkatesh started learning Carnatic vocal music from the age of 4 and came under the tutelage of Guru Tara Anand in 2010. She has represented Anubhava School of Music in many local temple and community events.

Besides vocal music, Sahana is also a disciple of Vidushi Smt. Durga Krishnan who is the founder director of the New England School of Carnatic Music (NESCM), a well known and reputed Veena
artist and teacher, cultural director of Chinmaya Mission and an avid promoter of fine arts in this part of the world.

Sahana has been teaching Veena at Chinmaya Mission for NESCM, for the past few years.

Moumita Banerjee the Founder and Artistic Director of Tarana School of Kathak LLC (TSK). Moumita was born and raised in India and moved to the United State in 2008.

She is very passionate about Kathak dance and started learning Kathak dance (in Jaipur Gharana) at her age of 3. She is fervent about dance and finds joy and freedom in expressing herself creatively through music and movement. She is passionate about promoting and teaching Kathak and wants to ensure the tradition of kathak and its value carry on to our future generation.

She received her Master of Performing Arts (MPA) degree in Kathak dance (Lucknow Gharana) from Bhatkhande Music Institute Deemed University, Lucknow. During her MPA she has prominent herself in the different areas of Kathak dance such as stage performance, proficiency, and Aesthetics. She earned her Bachelor of Music (B.Mus.) degree from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), one of the largest and prestigious universities in India as well as in Asia. She is awarded the Gold Medal for securing first position in the University. She completed Prabhakar degree (similar to Bachelor degree in Kathak dance) and Senior Diploma in Kathak with distinction from Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Allahabad, India. She has learned under legendary gurus like Prof. Kumkum Dhar, Prof. Bina Singh and Prof. Ranjana Srivastava. She also completed workshop training with Pandit Birju Maharaj, leading exponent of Lucknow Gaharana of Kathak and Ashimbandhu Bhattacharjee.

She has been a performer for over 10 years. She has performed and choreographed in India and many places in the USA (Florida, Texas and Massachusetts) at various organizations and festivals. She has many years of teaching experience in India and USA and would be glad to share her dance experience with children and adults who love this as much as she does. In order to preserve the rich cultural heritage of kathak and promote traditional kathak dance form, she started TSK. She strongly feels that shifting focus towards Bollywood dance is slowly destroying the basic foundations of classical dance.

Vaishnavi Kondapalli is a Classically trained vocalist gifted with a rich silken voice. She started singing at a very young age of 7. Her mother exposed her to all forms of music and encouraged her to sing different genres. In her young formative years she sang Bhava geet in Hindi and Telugu . She sang regularly at All India Radio Hyderabad and Doordarshan Hyderabad. She won the All India Radio Light Music regional competition in 1997. She has received Carnatic Vocal Training under Sri Neti SriRama Sarma.

She is currently studying Hindustani Vocal music under Vidushi Smt Arati Ankalikar-Tikekar. Apart from stage performances, Vaishnavi also rendered her voice in private albums. Her album “Simply Love” was featured as the “Top album of the week” on Musicindiaonline. Vaishnavi periodically releases original singles on YouTube Spotify and other streaming outlets. She is currently giving vocal lessons for all ages.

Vibhu Nagral, RYT, IAYT, has been a practicing Yoga Teacher, Yoga Therapist and Patient Counselor for over 15 years. She began her Yoga journey as a teenager, training in multiple styles of Yoga, including Shivananda, Bihar and Iyengar Yoga. Her love and passion for Yoga culminated into a full time Yoga career, both in India and the United States.

Smitha Vayyavur is a yoga instructor. She began practicing yoga from past many years with passion and dedication. She teaches alignment based on Hatha, Vinyasa and Power yoga.

Her classes are tailored to meet your specific and individual needs, which will help to increase muscle strength and tone, maintain a balanced metabolism, improve cardio and circulatory health, improve respiration, energy, vitality, weight loss and more.

Mona Mitra is a classically trained dancer, with a “Visharad” in Kathak. She has been trained under Pandit Chunilal Goswami and Dr. Amita Dutt, who is a senior disciple of Pandit Birju Maharaj and the Dean of Fine Arts at Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata.
Mona has been teaching dance for the last 15 years.

In the Boston area, she has been teaching Kathak since 2010. She and her students from Mona’s Dance Academy have been performing for various cultural and non-profit organizations and in local TV channels. Prior to Boston, she had taught in Los Angeles, Portland (Oregon), and India.