Mangalore, March 8: A week-long cultural extravaganza awaits connoisseurs of dance and music when Samskriti Sinchana 2008 gets under way at the Town Hall here on Monday.

M. Mohan Alva, chairman of the foundation, told presspersons here on Friday that leading, established and upcoming artistes would perform at the festival. Flautist Praveen Praveen Godkindi and violin vidwan Mysore Manjunath, who would perform a jugalbandhi after the inaugural session, would be conferred with Samskriti Sinchana awards. This would be followed by samanvaya, fusion of Bharatanatyam, Kuchchupudi and Kathak dances, he said.

Manjusha Patil from Pune would present a Hindustani vocal classical music concert on Tuesday. She would be accompanied by Bharath Kamath on the tabla and Vishwanath Bhat on the harmonium, Dr. Alva said. This would be followed by Odissi classical dance by Sharmila Mukharjee and group from Bangalore. M.A. Sundareshwaran and M.A. Krishnaswamy from Chennai would present a violin jugalbandhi on Wednesday.

Neena Prasad from Thiruvananthapuram would present mohiniyattam on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Prasanna Venkataraman from Chennai would present Carnatic classical vocal.

Ananth B.N., Karthik Datar, Sreenivasan, and Somashekar from Bangalore would present Bharatanatyam. Vijaya Ghate from Pune would present a tabla solo recital on Friday and it would be followed by Bharatanatyam by Mubina and Nilesh Singh from Mumbai.

Maithili Prakash from Chennai and Nandini Mehtha group from Bangalore would present Bharatanatyam and Kathak classical dance respectively on Saturday.

Sarathi Chatterji from New Delhi and Shailaja and group from Chennai would round off the festival with a Hindustani classical vocal recital and Kuchchupudi dance respectively.

Entry to the events was free and the programmes would start at 6 p.m., Dr. Alva added.

Nagathihalli Chandrashekar, film director, will inaugurate the event.

Hindu