 Nirmala wins Bush Foundation fellowship
 Nirmala Rajasekar, noted Carnatic music vocalist and veena player based outside of Minneapolis, MN USA, has been awarded the highly prestigious Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship for Traditional and Folk Arts for 2006-2007.
Applications for Bush Fellowships in any discipline are extremely competitive, and Nirmala is the first Indian musician to be awarded this honour. The two-year fellowship provides Nirmala the artistic, business and financial support required to fulfil her fellowship plan.
Nirmala has an ambitious plan to utilise her fellowship period to focus on developing her repertoire of rare Muthuswamy Dikshitar compositions with her gurus T R Subramanyam and Kalpakam Swaminathan, develop her knowledge of Sanskrit, and to document the guru-sishya parampara during her learning process.
In summer 2006, Nirmala performed in Bali, Indonesia, on July 1 and July 3 in the international premiere of the unique cross-cultural collaboration 'Sethu', as the composer and lead vocalist. Nirmala followed with several performances in Chennai and Bangalore, from July 5-17, including a concert under the auspices of Radel Electronics at Ananya
Sabhangana.
Nirmala's next performances include Minneapolis-St. Paul area performances of 'Sethu', as well as a collaboration with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra in December 2006. Nirmala will then perform during the Chennai music and dance season in December 2006 - January 2007.
For more information on Nirmala, please go to
www.nirmalarajasekar.com
Suchi Sairam
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