Touted as a powerhouse of talent with potential to fill the vacuum left by legendary superstar M.S. Subbulakshmi, 13-year old Carnatic YouTube phenomenon, Sooryagayathri will give a live music performance on 29th December 2019 from 10.00 a.m. onwards at CIDCO Exhibition Centre, Navi Mumbai.
The event organized by Malavika Events will be inaugurated by Jyothis Mohan IRS, Joint Commissioner, Income Tax. Suseel Kumar, Managing Director, LIC will be the Chief Guest. M.P. Ramachandran, CMD, Jyothy Labs, Malayalam actress Veena Nair and Padmanabhan Nair, Managing Partner, Sree Group of Companies will be the Guests of Honour.
Hailing from Purameri village, Vadakara in North Kerala, the young vocalist has been capturing the hearts of music lovers from across the globe and has notched up more than 150 million viewers worldwide for many of her devotional songs sung impeccably. Surprisingly, legendary poet-saint Tulasidas’s ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ sung by Subbulakshmi garnered around 6 lakh views online while the soulful rendition of the same by Sooryagayathri notched a record 2.5 crore viewers on YouTube. Ganesha Pancharatnam, Bhaygyatha Lakshmi Baramma, Sriramachandra Kripalu, Ayigiri Nandini and many more sung by her have struck a chord with spiritual masters and music lovers.
The child prodigy has already held more than 300 bhajan nights throughout India and participated in many concerts in Dubai, Singapore, South Africa, Trinidad, etc. Sooryagayathri’s father P.B. Anil Kumar is an accomplished Mridamgam artist and her mother Divya is a poetess with natural flair. Her father accompanies her for stage performances. Sooryagayathri has been awarded with the M.S. Subbulakshmi Fellowship for the tenth year. She was blessed with her musical Saparya in the official residence of our Hon’ble Vice President of India, Sri Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi.
It was Sooryagayathri’s teacher in school who first noticed how the little girl used to hum in class and then encouraged her to sing songs, following which her parents trained her in classical singing. It is unbelievable to see that at such a young age itself Sooryagayathri has the will power to take her own decisions. The decision to refrain from participating in school youth festival was one of this. It so happened that once when she visited Thiruvannamalai Ramanashramam for a concert, a sage whom she met years ago asked her about her well-being and advised her not to sing for trophies alone since God has gifted her with golden voice. This was a turning point for her and she decided there and then not to participate in singing competitions, although her school teachers were shocked with her decision.
Speaking about stage fear, Sooryagayathri says, “I never feel scared, no matter how big the audience is, when the mike is on and I am on stage, I just deliver. The toughest part comes post-show when people rush to take selfies or seek autographs.” Among the many awards that she has raked up in her young career include the prestigious MS Subbulakshmi Fellowship in 2014, the Trivandrum Kalanidhi Sangeeta Ratna Puraskar in 2016 and the Bombay Hariharaputra Bhajana Samaj Shakti award in 2017.
