December 2011 saw a number of activities at the festival organized by Chennai Fine Arts. A total of twenty-four concerts and four lecture demonstrations were performed by veteran artistes and eminent scholars. The festival was classified under three major categories namely Vaggeyakara Vaibhavam, Visesha Vadyanubhava and Yuvakala Vaibhavam. The festival spanning twelve days began with a grand inauguration on the 21st of December 2011.
Shri. S.S. Jawahar, I.A.S., Commissioner of Art & Culture, Government of Tamil Nadu, presided over the function and Mrudangam Maestro Prof. Trichy Sankaran delivered the felicitation address. The inaugural concert was by Shri. R.K. Srikantan with Shri. R.S. Ramakanth, Chitravina Shri. N. Ravikiran, Srimushnam Shri. V. Rajarao and Trichy Shri. Murali.
Vaggeyakara Vaibhavam aims at elucidating the works of various great composers of Carnatic music apart from the well-known trinity, pre-trinity and post-trinity composers. A program under this category comprises of a lecture on the musical contributions of a particular composer followed by the rendition of a few of his/her compositions. About fifty rare composers have been featured under this category in the festival of Chennai Fine Arts over the years.
| Date | Topic & Concert by |
|---|---|
| 22.12.2011 | Varalakshmi Anandkumar with Melakaveri Tyagarajan and B. Ganapathyramani |
| Compositions of Margadarsi Seshayyangar by Dr. Prema Rangarajan with Usha Rajagopalan and Melakkaveri Balaji | |
| 23.12.2011 | Compositions of Irayimman Thampi by Madhavan Namboothri with M.R. Gopinath and Udupi Sridhar |
| 24.12.2011 | Compositions of Chitravina N Ravikiran by B. Bhargavi with Ranjani Ramakrishna, H S Sudheendra |
| Compositions of Chitravina N Ravikiran by Kunnakudi M Balamuralikrishna with V.L. Kumar and Kallidaikurichi Sivakumar |
Traditional instrument belonging to the south Indian classical music genre are featured in the concerts held under the category Visesha Vadyanubhava. In times when concerts of instrumental music are a rarity, Chennai Fine Arts ensures the upkeep of our cultural tradition by organizing concerts featuring instruments like Chitraveena, Veena, Jalatarangam, Mukhaveena and so on.
| Date | Artists (Instrument) |
|---|---|
| 23.12.2011 | Nirmala Rajasekar (Veena), B Sivaraman (Mrudangam), Nanganallur Swaminathan (Ghatam) |
| 25.12.2011 | M.S. Gopalakrishnan, Dr. M. Narmada & G. Sureshkumar (Violin Trio), Neyveli Narayanan (Mrudangam), Adambakkam Shankar (Ghatam) |
| Mudikondan Ramesh (Veena), A S Ranganathan (Mrudangam), Srirangam S Ravikrishnan (Ghatam), P S Ramanujam (Morsing) | |
| 26.12.2011 | Injikkudi E.M. Subramaniam (Nagasvaram), Talachankodu T M Ramanathan and Sembanarkoil S M Babu (Tavil) |
| B. Kannan (Veena), M A Krishnaswami (Violin), Akshay Ram & Bhairav Chandrasekar (Double Mrudangam), N Sundar (Tabla & Morsing) | |
| 27.12.2011 | Dr. N. Ramani (Flute), Nagai Muralidharan (Violin), Mannargudi Eswaran (Mrudangam), Vaikom Gopalakrishnan (Ghatam) |
| U.P. Raju & Smt. Nagamani (Mandoli Duet), Australia Ravichandran (Mrudangam), Trichy Murali (Ghatam), Sai Nivedhan (Kanjeera) |
Yuvakala Vaibhavam is organized to provide a platform to the young up-coming artists to exhibit their musical prowess. By encouraging young talents Chennai Fine Arts is taking a step forward in preserving Carnatic music and making it available in its pristine form to posterity.
| Date | Artists |
|---|---|
| 28.12.2011 | S. Nithyasree (Veena) - Ashwin Sridharan (Mrudangam) |
| Manasi Prasad (Vocal) - R. Kailasam (Violin), Ashwin Sridharan (Mrudangam) | |
| 29.12.2011 | Akkarai Subhasree (Vocal) - Villivakkam Raghuraman (Violin), Udupi Balakrishnan (Mrudangam) |
| Kishan Jayendran (Mandolin) - Sudha R.S. Iyer (Violin), M.S. Venkatasubramaniam (Mrudangam) | |
| Vidya Kalyanaraman (Vocal) - Sudha R.S. Iyer (Violin), Tanjore K. Praveen Kumar (Mrudangam) | |
| 31.12.2011 | Vallivalam Venkataraman (Vocal) - Villivakkam Raghuraman (Violin), M.S. Venkatasubramaniam (Mrudangam) |
| Ragavendra R (Vocal) - R. Rahul (Violin), R. Parthasarathy (Mrudangam) | |
| Smt. Pushpa Anand (Pandurangan Abhangs) & Party |