LOTUS Sep Concerts

Name: LOTUS Sep Concerts
Start: 2025-09-20T13:30:00-07:00
Location: Sanatana Dharma Kendra

Schedule

Sat, 20 Sep, 2025 at 01:30 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

Sanatana Dharma Kendra | San Jose, CA

Concert 1
Vaibhav Prakash (Vocal)
Urmika Balaji (Violin)
Umesh Gopi (Mridangam)
Sathya Ganesan (Ghatam)
Concert 2
Janitha Prabhakaran (Vocal)
Avanija Vangala (Violin)
Saatvik Swaminathan (Mridangam)
------------------------------------------
Vaibhav Prakash (Vocal)
Vaibhav Prakash has been learning Carnatic vocal music for 12 years and is currently under the tutelage of Sri N. Vijay Siva. He regularly performs concerts in the US and in India during the prestigious Margazhi music season. He has won prizes in several competitions including first place at the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana in the Junior Pallavi category. Vaibhav is also learning mridangam and is a disciple of Sri Gopi Lakshminarayanan. He regularly accompanies students and music schools in the Bay Area. Vaibhav is a rising second year at UC Irvine and is pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering. In addition to music, Vaibhav enjoys cooking meals for his family and going on drives.

Urmika Balaji (Violin)
Urmika has been a disciple of Sangita Kalanidhi Kumari A. Kanyakumari for the past 12 years. She is also being trained in vocal music by Sri Chandrashekar Kalyanaraman. Urmika is a recipient of the “Best Accompanying Violinist” award from the Spirit of Youth festival conducted by the Music Academy and regularly performs during the December music season. She is studying biology at UC Davis.

Umesh Gopi (Mridangam)
Umesh has been learning mridangam from his father, Sri Gopi Lakshminarayanan, since a young age He completed his mridangam arangetram in Summer 2024, accompanying Sri Sikkil Gurucharan Umesh regularly accompanies young musicians for organizations such as CCC, LOTUS, Hamsadwani and SRFA He performs annually during the Chennai music season. Umesh is also learning Carnatic vocal music under Sri Kolkata Vijayaraghavan. Umesh is a sophomore at UC Berkeley studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He actively contributes to the promotion of Carnatic music through involvement with RagaN and Laya of Berkeley.

Sathya Ganesan (Ghatam)
Sathya Ganesan, a 10th grader at Emerald High School commenced learning Ghatam at the age of 5 from the Late Shri T H Subash Chandran and has been under the tutelage of Shri N Guruprasad since 2019. Sathya was blessed to present his Ghatam Arangetram in Chennai in August 2023 with the presence of legendary Guru shri T.H Vikku Vinayakaram. Sathya is blessed to be the disciple of Acharya Pitamaha Shri Chitravina Narasimhan, Sangeet Samrat Shri Chitravina N Ravikiran and Vidushi Bhargavi Balasubramanian for Carnatic Vocal. He presented his Vocal Arangetram in February, 2023 & regularly performs solo carnatic vocal concerts & duet with his brother. He has won several vocal competition awards from various organizations including the Cleveland aradhana and a third place in the concert competition being the most recent. Sathya has been a regular accompanist at the Indian Fine Arts of San Diego's youth festival for the past two years.
------------------------------------------
Janithaa Prabhakaran (Vocal)
Janithaa Prabhakaran has been learning Carnatic vocal music from Smt. Kasthuri Shivakumar (IAIM) for the past 8 years. She is a violin disciple of Shri. Easwar Ramakrishnan and is also learning Bharatanatyam under the tutelage of Smt. Suganda Iyer (Jayendra Kalakendra). She is an 8th grader at Thornton Middle School, Fremont. Her hobbies include reading novels, writing, and doing science experiments.

Avanija Vangala (Violin)
Avanija is a 11th grader at Stratford Preparatory School. She has been learning Carnatic Violin from Kalaimamani Padma Shankar (Student of Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman). She has won prizes in multiple competitions and regularly performs solos and accompaniment concerts around the Bay Area. She regularly supports many Bay Area schools on violin.

Saatvik Swaminathan (Mridangam)
Saatvik Swaminathan is a freshmen in Dougherty Valley High School. He is learning mridangam from Sangeetha Kalanidhi Padma Vibhushan Dr.Umayalpuram K Sivaraman for past 5 years. He had participated & won prize in cleveland thyagaraja aradhana & papanasam sivan competitions. He had also accompanied at several events across bay area. He likes to listen to lot of yesteryear musicians concerts in his free time.