We have to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Sushil Kumar Agarwal’s team for their year long effort in putting this event together. Sushilji has dedicated an entire team of talented, hardworking people who have made a great difference in taking to mission of the AVDS Art foundation ahead.

With careful planning in placing of classified ads in the newspapers, to dealing with the media, the dedicated team at Ultra Music, works throughout the year, to make the competition a great success. A mission like ours needs a lot of exposure, media awareness, local publicity, etc. All this takes a lot of time, effort and dedication. Sushilji’s team has untiring promoted the foundation since its inception and continue to do so. They are involved in every aspect of the mission and work very closely with Her Holiness Sri Sri Guru Maa and the other patrons.

I have personally experienced their dedication and would like to take this opportunity to thank Nilay Vaidya; a great source of help in all the competitions held so far, Dev Shetty and his colleagues of Sushilji’s team and part of the organizing committee for the Indian Classical Music & Dance Competition.

A recall to last year will take us back to November. The preliminary selection rounds were held all through the year and the main selection was done in November. Entries kept pouring all through the year and from all parts of the country. The message is spreading to throughout the country due to the active and well-planned media activities practiced by our patrons in India.

Just the actual activities of the selection day was extremely hectic and chaotic. Pandit Jasraj looked after the selection of participants from Vocal and Instrumentals and Guru Kalyan Sundaram for Dance Category. There were 15 Participants in Dance, 7 participants in Vocal and 10 Participants in the Instrumental. Two Participants will be selected to take part in Competition to be held in New York this year. Her Holiness Guru Maa and Annapurna Bhangdia who was in India at that time came down to Mumbai from Lonavala to participate in the selection. Guru Maa was extremely impressed with the young talent. A young boy who participated in classical dance made a great impression on Her. She was amazed at how graceful he was!

Coming back to the technicalities of putting up this event, initially the team short-listed the basic requirement of the event such as checking the hall and the lighting, sound and seating arrangement. Tabla and Harmonium arrangements for the accompanying artists was looked into. Children, elders and artists had come from far and wide for this competition. The team wanted to ensure that everything went off smoothly for everybody.

Sushilji’s main man Dev Shetty and team did the inspection of the Hall for the seating arrangements, accompanying artists instruments, etc. Later on, the team interacted with catering people for the service of Tea and snacks for the judges, participants and the audience.

Detailed attention made sure that the banners of The Acharya Viswanath Dev Sarma Art Foundation was prominently noted by the guests and journalists. Not to mention the elaborate flower and bouquet arrangements. The facilitation to the Judges took place after the first break the flower bouquets were presented to them.

We also had contributions from other schools such as Gaanwardhan, a classical music and event school based in Pune. Gaanwardhan is one of the prime organizations of Pune working constructively in the field of Indian Classical Music for over past twenty years. They have staged not only eminent artists but has also promoted many artists of younger generation. Apart from regular concerts. 'Gaanwardhan' has also successfully organized seminars workshops and Classical Vocal competition.

They selected some of the well-trained candidates from their organization to participate in the Acharya Viswadev Sarma Art Foundation competition. They also helped Sushilji’s team with input on the format of the application for the competition.

Her Holiness Guru Maa had met with them in September in Pune and is supporting their goals which is the same as ours by allowing their best candidates to perform directly for the final round in Mumbai, thus making the task of selection more easy. Having myself met it's members in Pune with Guru Maa, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the entire team at Gaanwardhan personally for their contribution.

We all await the results of the competition and hope that collectively, all of us can effect young talented musicians, artistes in their goal of leading Indian classical music into the next millennium. We also look forward to the performances of the winners in New York during the Dipawali celebration festivities in November this year.

Jai Shri Hanuman