Cultural Department to pay rich tributes on July 22

Hyderabad: Surmandal, Department of Culture and Tourism, Govt of TS and Indie Winds Academy of Music are jointly planning to celebrate 80th birthday celebrations of Hariprasad Chaurasia here at Ravindra Bharathi on Sunday.

Mohan Hemmadi, president Surmandal said in a press note that KT Rama Rao, Minister for IT, Muncipal Administration and Kalatapasvi K Vishwanath, KI Varaprasad Reddy and Dr KV Ramana Chary, advisor to the TS govt will join the organizers to pay tribute to the living legend. Nagaraju Talluri, flautist and composer will present “Guruvandanam”, a grand tribute to the guru.

B Venkatesham, secretary, Tourism and Culture; Vennela Seetharama Sastry, Lyricist; Vinod Kumar Yadav, general manager, SCR and Mamidi Harikrishna, Director of Language & Culture, ts Govt will grace as honorable guests. Panditji was born on July 1, 1930. He is a well known Indian classical flautist. He plays the bansuri in the Hindustan Classical Tradition. An internationally acclaimed flautist, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia is a very popular and eminent artiste par excellence who is known for his outstanding contribution in popularizing Indian Classical Music all over the world. Unlike many other great Indian artistes, Pandit Chaurasia does not come from a family of musicians.

His experimental album “Eternity” incorporated many western elements alongside of North Indian Classical ones. He has recorded many such albums. In all his albums he tried to blend Indian Classical Music with western music to create beautiful and soulful music. He has performed memorable jugalbandis with the stalwarts of Indian Classical music like Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Dr. Balamuralikrishnan, Smt. Kishori Amonkar and jammed with western artistes like John Mc Laughlin, Jan Garbarek, Larry Coryell, Egberto Gismonti and many others.