Chennai: Art magazine Samudhra celebrated its 16th anniversary with an event here at the Ramakrishna Mission School, T Nagar, Sunday. During the occasion, it also conferred the title of ‘Gnana Samudhra’ upon Cleveland Sundaram and Gomathi Sundaram for their service to fine arts.
Samudhra is an educative magazine launched by founder of Mudhra, ‘Mudhra’ Bhaskar and Radha Bhaskar, that covers fine arts comprising music, dance, drama and art cinema. Every year, during its anniversary, Samudhra recognises the service of senior musicians, writers and critics for the cause of fine arts and bestows upon them the title ‘Gnana Samudhra’.
Co-founder and secretary of Cleveland Aradhana festival, V V Sundaram, along with his wife Gomathi Sundaram, has been involved in promoting Carnatic music and dance in North America for nearly four decades.
During the event, chief patron of Samudhra, Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti, conferred the title, and founder of Bharatanjali, Anitha Guha, and actor Kathadi Ramamurthy felicitated the couple.
“Samudhra is, indeed, honoured to give the award to the couple. They have done so much to spread Carnatic music in America. They have not only made popular musicians perform in their festivals but have given recognition to numerous unknown singers. Their contributions over the years will remain unmatched,” said Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti.
“The main reason for us receiving this honour is because of Cleveland Balu, who is a part of our committee. He first asked us to organise the festival for free and helped in bringing lot of vidwans to America. And without the support of my wife, nothing would have been possible,” said Sundaram.
He then credited his whole team and artistes for helping to spread Carnatic music around America.
Mudhra Bhaskar and Radha Bhaskar has also launched a weekly free webcast on the Internet through Paalam TV and celebrated the completion of 300 weeks of the show during the occasion. The event also had Carnatic music performance by Sai Sisters and Sriranjani Santhanagopalan.