old - Musicians - Navatman

Meet Our Musicians

Roopa Mahadevan - Artistic Director

She is a Carnatic vocalist who underwent her formative training in San Jose, under Smt. Asha Ramesh, disciple of the late Sangeetha Kalanidhi D.K. Jayaraman and Sri Nanganallur Ramanathan. In 2007, Roopa was awarded the highly regarded Fulbright Scholarship by the Department of State, USA to receive advanced training in Chennai, India, under Smt. Suguna Varadachari, a senior Guru of the Musiri Subramania Iyer tradition. She has held full-length concerts in India and North America, including the well-known Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana, which recognised her as ‘Kala Ratna’ for her commitment to Carnatic music. A lover of R&B/soul music, she has lent her voice to several contemporary art projects, including two urban/R&B music albums ’Lovespeak’ and ‘Bring Back the Nyte’. The album, ‘Calling All Dawns’, won the 2011 Grammy for ‘Best Crossover Classical Album.’

Kamini Dandapani

Kamini Dandapani has had extensive training in Carnatic vocal music, Western Classical music (piano) as well as in Bharatanatyam. She studied Carnatic music for over 20 years with some of the leading teachers and performers in the field, including Vidwan Madurai N. Krishnan (who was a discipline of Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar), Dr. M. Balamurali Krishna, Smt. T. Muktha, Smt. Lalitha Sivakumar and Smt. Vedanayaki. At the same time, she studied classical piano, and holds a Licentiate from Trinity College of Music, London. Simultaneously learning and being immersed in these two different classical traditions has given her a not-often-encountered perspective on the similarities and differences between them across many dimensions including the theory, history, performance, performers and trends.

Kamini is a guest faculty member at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York. She is also a faculty member at the International Vocal Arts Workshop held every summer in Croatia. She also writes extensively on South India – history, travel, music, dance, short stories, science and anything else that catches her fancy – on her blog, Tales of South India.

Vignesh Ravichandran

Vignesh has learned Carnatic music for over 10 years under various gurus. His main gurus are V.S. Balamurali, Head of the Music Department, Bharathiar Palkalaikoodam, Pondicherry and Mrs. Mathangi, All India Radio artist, Pondicherry. He has won awards in various state and national level Carnatic music contests, including the "Young Talented Child" award from the Pondicherry government in 2005 and "Yuva Kala Bharati" in 2008 from the Yuva Kala Kendra trust in Pondicherry. He has also performed Indian film music at several venues in India and the U.S.. Vignesh continues to pursue his passion towards music with his equal fondness to science. He works at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre investigating rare genomic mutations in familial cancer.

Preetha Raghu

Preetha started learning Carnatic music at the age of 6 has had various Carnatic music teachers since then as she moved from country to country. Preetha learned music from Sivasakthi Sivanesan in Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in London. Under her tutelage, Preetha was also able to learn from greats such as TV Gopalakrishnan and Dr. Balamuralikrishna. Preetha performed her music arangetram at the age of 15 in Chennai. She is an avid pop culture fan, and loves music in all its forms. She currently works as a database engineer in New York City and learns classical music from Kamini Dandapani.

Bhargavi Kamakshivalli

Bhargavi comes from the family of renowned musicians T L Venkatraman Iyer and Muthaiah bhagavathar and started her formative training in Carnatic music at the age of four under sukanya, daughter of D K Jayaraman. Having grown up in the musical milieu of chennai gave her the opportunity to learn from Geeta Raja, S Sowmya and R Vedavalli. She has performed in thiruvaiyaru and oothukaadu during their annual festivals and has won several competitions conducted by the prestigious Madras music academy and the mylapore fine arts, amongst others.

Bhargavi currently lives in New York, where she leads the product and user experience team for a financial startup and pursues a part time PhD in design. She continues to hone her musical skills under Amrutha Venkatesh and prince Rama Varma.

Shraddha Balasubramaniam

Shraddha Balasubramaniam, a final year graduate student of the New York School of Interior Design, began her formal training in Indian Classical music and dance at the age of five. Grand daughter of the renowned Vainika and Vocalist Shri Kalyanakrishna Bhagavathar, she began her training in Carnatic music under the tutelage of Kalaimamani Smt. S. Rajeshwari and later under her disciple Smt. Sathyabama . Simultaneously, she learned Bharatanatyam under Sangeeta Natak Academy awardee, Guru Smt. Rhadha. She has put up performances in both music and dance, a noteworthy one would be the operatic ballet, ‘Jaya Jaya Devi’ by the music Maestro, Lalgudi G Jayaraman in 2008. She has also participated in rendering Shlokas for the 'Divine Shlokas' series with her guru, S. Rajeshwari.

Shiv Subramaniam

Shiv Subramaniam is a Carnatic vocalist who has performed regularly in Chennai’s December Music Festival since 2007. He has been a disciple of P.S. Narayanaswamy since 2001 and received early training from Vani Sateesh and his grandmother, Lakshmi Balasubramaniam. Shiv is currently based in New York, pursuing Graduate Studies in Sanskrit Literature at Columbia University.