The Amerika Kannada cultural front reached a new, unprecedented horizon this week!! Vijayotsava-2018, a grand 10-concert tour of US by the highly popular playback singer Vijay Prakash and his team organized by Kasturi Media and PAMPA Studios was immensely well received all over the country, resulting in an incredible and unparalleled triumph that can only be called VIJAYOTSAVA!!

 

Building on the euphoria of its success from two years ago (Vijayotsava-2016 in the San Francisco Bay Area), the quartet of Vijay Prakash, Govardhan Gowda, Bindu Madhava and Raghu Halur came together in an audacious attempt to expand this celebration of music nationwide, thus realizing a longtime collective dream of uniting all Amerikannadigas from coast to coast under one religion called music!!

 

This was easier said than done though. With a hectic schedule spanning across time zones, high expectations from people all over, numerous uncertainties and above all, a lack of precedence of such a mega Kannada tour, Vijayotsava was going to be anything but a breeze. But the extraordinary ability of Vijay Prakash as an ultimate crowd-winner, the mesmerizing voice of Anuradha Bhat, the sheer talent of every single musician in the team, the grit & determination of the organizers and the tremendously passionate audiences in each city made this dream come true for everyone. Maestro Arunkumar, seasoned Venky, talented young studs Praveen, Bhruthuva and Harsha put up nothing less than a stunning performance every time they got out on the stage. Sound engineer Aniyan’s magic behind the console and manager Sahay’s coordination of the band ensured nothing is amiss in any of the concerts, while singers Akanksha Badami, Akshata Mudinoor and about a dozen chorus singers per city added color to the respective concerts. Raghu Halur’s terrific anchoring provided a rollicking start to the concerts setting a vibrant tone to begin with.

 

But undoubtedly the most pivotal factor in this unbelievable success was the man himself. Vijay Prakash, the ever-so-versatile singer that has been dishing out record-breaking superhits one after the other in the recent years showed exemplary skills and timely acumen to make each concert truly memorable to everyone in the audience. He used his rich repertoire effectively to touch the hearts of a wide variety of music lovers covering old and new songs, melody and foot-tapping numbers, classical songs, solos, duets and so on. He knew when and how to switch gears from one genre to another, and as in the case of multilingual concerts, knew how to adapt and appeal to each section of the audience. The fact that even American-born kids thoroughly enjoyed his concerts was a standing testimony to his abilities as a performer. Vijay’s friendly nature, his natural flamboyance and his remarkable ability to interact well with the crowdhad 7000+ music lovers across the country captivated to the hilt.

 

History has been made and for sure, history will be repeated!! But in its course, this trendsetteralso has given the much-neededcourage for many others to follow suit. While there will be many more such events to come in the future, this first one will be etched in goldin the memory of everyone involved … FOREVER!!

JAI HO!!