 National arts council - Singapore
 The National Arts Council, Singapore, is a world-renowned organisation that aims at capturing the quintessence of Indian music.
The council is involved in spotting young talent, to nurture young musicians and to create an
awareness about Indian music in Singapore.
To bring out the hidden talent and to channelise their potentials, the National Arts Council began holding competitions from 1998.
 This year many youngsters took part and had a good opportunity to have a tete-a-tete with international stalwarts. This year's competition had the crème de la crème of south Indian musicians decorating the stage as judges.
The competition was categorized into different streams like vocal, violin, veena, sitar and mridangam. There were 121 participants and the winners were awarded cash prizes, certificates and trophies.
 The competition was conducted in an exemplary manner which has become point of reference in the music fraternity. The judges from India were Sanjay Subramanian for vocal, S Varadarajan for violin, Rajesh Vaidhya for veena, Neyveli Venkatesh for mridangam, and Shubhadra Aniruddha Deshpande for sitar.
After the competition Master Classes were conducted by the judges who taught the nitty-gritty of the art. The atmosphere reverberated with the sound of music.
Usha Raja
usharaja60@hotmail.com
| 
