India’s top budding talent across art forms awarded the first title of “Young Artiste of the Year” at the SIFF Young Artiste Festival 2020-21
Bangalore : SIFF Young Artiste announced the first season winners for the title of “Young Artiste of the Year” on 4th September 2021 in a grand virtual event. The winners – Tamish Pulappadi from Guitar for Instrumental, Akshita Singh Chouhan from Indian Vocal for Vocal, Janki DV from Bharatanatyam for Dance were awarded the titles at the event attended by celebrities and artists from the music and dance fraternity. The winners were also awarded a cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh, each.
Featuring eminent personalities such as Dr. L Subramaniam, Nikhita Gandhi, Ehsaan Noorani, Shalmali Kholgade, Terence Lewis, Shovana Narayan and the Black Ice crew, the show was hosted by Aditya Narayan.
The People’s Choice voting platform received a whopping 22,000 votes and the winner Aatmik Gupta from Jaipur in the Drums category was presented with a cash prize of Rs. 50,000.
Speaking about the finale Kavita Iyer, co-founder of SIFF Young Artiste 2020, said, “Over the past few months, SIFF Young Artiste has successfully created an ecosystem for performing arts enthusiasts in India to explore their fields of interest. It was an immensely fulfilling journey for us to be a part of their growth process with a platform that encourages and nourishes their talents. The finale truly brought the best performances from all the contestants.”
Celebrating music and dance in the culmination of the competition in a Grand Finale, National Winner titles across categories were announced and given a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 each. Here is the list of National winners’ category-wise:
- Bharatanatyam: Janki DV from Udupi, Karnataka
- Bollywood: Mansi Dhruv from Rajkot, Gujarat
- Carnatic Violin: PS Narendran from Alappuzha, Kerala
- Carnatic Vocal: Shyam Krishna Sateesh from Bangalore, Karnataka
- Contemporary: Vishal Kumar Yadav from Darjeeling, West Bengal
- Drums: TR Nikhil from Chennai, Tamil Nadu
- Flute: Mohan Krishan from Faridabad, Haryana
- Guitar: Tamish Pulappadi from Bangalore, Karnataka
- Hindustani Vocal: Shreya V Murthy from Bangalore, Karnataka
- Hip hop: Aman Jaiswal from Patna, Bihar
- Indian Vocal: Akshita Singh Chouhan from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
- Kathak: Ananya Gaur from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
- Mridangam: KPS Karthikeya Adinarayana Sharma from Krishna, Andhra Pradesh
- Odissi: Meghna Mishra from Rourkela, Odisha
- Piano/Keyboard: Sathvik R Bharadwaj from Hassan, Karnataka
- Sitar / Sarod: Aronya Nandan from Kolkata, West Bengal
- Tabla: Ujith Udaya Kumar from New Delhi, Delhi
- Western Violin: Anthea Dias from Margao Salcete, Goa
- Western Vocal: Daisuanglung Kamei from Imphal East, Manipur
The Top 100 finalists were selected in 3 rounds from over 12,000 applications received in a nationwide search for India’s top performing talent. The performances by these finalists underwent a rigorous screening and evaluation process by a distinguished jury panel. Apart from the winners, all the remaining finalists were also awarded a cash prize of Rs. 10,000 each as a token of appreciation for their hard work and dedication.
Students from across the country applied for the competition, not just from metros and large cities but also from smaller cities, towns, and villages. It has been more than just a mere competition as it also focused on providing training sessions to the Top 100 and contributing to knowledge enhancement in the students’ journey. It is noteworthy that the 100 finalists received mentoring from maestros during the competition under the Young Artiste Advanced Mentorship Programme (YAMP), that was completely sponsored by SIFF Young Artiste, across categories, as part of the 25 Lakhs sponsorship program.
SIFF Young Artiste 2020-21, a national-level talent competition began in Jan 2020 with an aim to encourage and celebrate young talent of the nation by rewarding them with awards and scholarships worth Rs 25 lakhs/-. The competition featured 20 different categories across classical and contemporary forms of vocal, instrumental and dance. With the overwhelming response that the first season has received, SIFF Young Artiste plans to launch the next season in 2022.
Interestingly, SIFF Young Artiste has recently launched the Young Artiste Courses and is offering quality focused SIFF Comprehensive Curriculum in performing arts that is aimed at enabling students to become practicing artists. It is fostered by focusing on foundational knowledge in beginners, refinement of techniques and presentation skills in intermediate and guided creative projects in advanced levels. The participants will be trained via Live classes, supported by guided practice sessions, creative assignments, learning in groups, performance & collaboration opportunities in a multi-year curriculum. The uniqueness of the learning model is the end-to-end specializing programme spanning a few years and focus on practical knowledge and application.
The Advisory Panel at Young Artiste consists of Veteran Artists such as Madhavi Mudgal, Nikhitha Gandhi, Dr. N Rajam, the erstwhile HoD and Dean at the Banaras Hindu University, Dr. Rudrapatnam Thyagarajan, Professor of Carnatic Vocals at Jain University and Uday Bhawalkar, Guru at ITC’s Sangeet Research Academy. The SIFF Comprehensive Curriculum, Pedagogy and Accreditation are developed with their expertise, guidance, and mentorship.