Children Perform Karnatic Music at George Bauer Community Center

Melodious strains of Karnatic music wafted through the George Bauer Community Center in Millburn on Saturday as students from a local music school gathered to sing.

For the 10 children, all students of Manasa Khandrika, guru of the Millburn-based music school Sri Saraswathi Sangeetha Kalakshetra, it was a fine debut. They sang traditional South Indian classical songs in different Indian languages, including Kannada and Tamil.

They first invoked the blessings of Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed god who brings good luck, and then went on to sing songs composed by Muthuswami Dikshitar and others in praise of Krishna, Parvati and other Hindu deities. 

The children—Adithi Hariram, Divya Jayvas, Richa Kamasundaram, Sanjana Krishnan, Abhinav Khandrika, Anirudh Khandrika, Aditya Mahadev, Gowri Rajesh, Ria Tyagi and Vaani Lakshmi Varma—have been attending the music school for less than a year.

The youngest performers in the troupe—Adithi Hariram and Gowri Rajesh—are still in preschool. After the children sang nearly a dozen songs, a small group of parents also sang for an audience of about 50 people. The adult performers included Millburn Township residents Anu Mahadev, Deepa Krishnan, Prabha Natarajan, Hariram Ananthasubramanian and Manasa Khandrika.

For more information about the music school, visit https://sites.google.com/site/khandrikamanasa/home.

In photo: Front row from left, Adithi Hariram, Vaani Lakshmi Varma, Divya Jayvas, Abhinav Khandrika, Gowri Rajesh, Sanjana Krishnan, Aditya Mahadev, Richa Kamasamudram and Ria Tyagi. Second row from left, Anusha Shrivastava, Manasa Khandrika, Anirudh Khandrika, Deepa Krishnan, Anu Mahadev, Prabha Natarajan.