Rotary Club of Madras conferred the “Young Achiever Award” to Nithyashree Venkataramanan (Finalist- Indian Idol Junior), on Tuesday, 12th January 2016, 1:30 PM at Vivanta by Taj Connemara.
The Young Achiever Award instituted by Rotary Club of Madras promotes the best practice and excellence in youth creativity. The Award aims to create a platform to showcase India’s best talent as an encouragement in their quest to create economic opportunity and improve their leadership and creative abilities to ultimately play meaningful roles in managing the affairs of society. This year, the chosen young talent is Nithyashree Venkataramanan who catapulted to amazing fame through her incredible journey in the national voice talent show, Indian Idol Junior.
About Nithyashree Venakataramanan:
Born in 1999, Nithyashree developed a penchant for singing very early on. Her music talent was first identified by her parents at the age of 4 when she accidentally corrected the tune of her mother’s singing. Both parents were astonished to see their young toddler possess such musical knowledge. They approached a nearby music teacher for pursuing Carnatic music. When she turned 5, Nithyashree started singing in her father’s own band; Sri and Shree Raagas Audio. She has been pursuing Carnatic music for many years now and owes her success largely to her gurus — Lakshmi Raman, Padmavathy Ananthagopalan and PS Venkataraman—for giving her a strong base in classical music.
Besides her Carnatic music career, her passion towards Light Music enhanced and her parents admitted her in an all children orchestra named “Isai Mottugal” run by Drums Gopal. With his band, she performed more than 200+ stage shows all at the tender age of 8. In 2010, Nithyashree took her passion for light music to the next level when she participated in South India’s most popular music reality, “Airtel Super Singer Junior”. She won a lot of accolades throughout the show and has received appreciation from almost all the legendary playback singers of the South Indian music industry. She won the “Best Entertainer Award” of the season.
Nithyashree received her first breakthrough in playback singing in 2010, when Yuvan Shankar Raja approached her for the movie “Avan Ivan” for the song “Oru Malayoram” .The success of the song was followed by several recording opportunities for albums and movies with many upcoming music directors. She along with her sister, Vhaijaiyanthi Venkataramanan were fortunate enough to have had an opportunity to be a part of backing vocals in the movie “I” for the celebrated Oscar winning music director, A.R. Rahman. She had opportunities to work with Rahman as a backing vocalist for two of his other projects. The sisters have also released their own devotional musical album. Nithyahree has travelled across the world close to ten countries to entertain many music lovers.
In 2015, Nithyashree became the first contestant from Tamil Nadu to make it to the national reality show Indian Idol Junior. Nithyashree Venkataramanan who managed to woo the audiences and celebrity judges alike, was declared a worthy runner-up in a closely fought finale. Her passion for singing coupled with kind nurturing for her parents and guru saw her dedicate much of her time to singing practice while paying equal attention to academics.
The Class XII student of SBOA School and Junior College (CBSE) made the cut in the highly-competitive show, which is dominated by contestants from the northern belt. And even though Hindi was a huge impediment, she effortlessly memorized the lyrics of Bollywood songs and won the hearts of millions with her soulful renditions. Such is her determination and passion for singing. She has worked a lot on hindi pronunciations which is normally a huge challenge for someone from the Tamil Nadu. Her mentor and teacher Jaya Rajagopal, a prominent retro singer from Chennai, has spent a lot of time polishing the rough edges. And like a diamond, her brilliance shone. Her dedication to winning the contest became apparent with the fact that she would spend nearly seven hours to brush up her skills and her accent ahead of each round of Indian Idol. Her strong Carnatic base allows her dabble in all genres of music and particularly looks up to the celebrated singer Asha Bhonsle for her versatility.
Even with fame kissing her feet very early in life, Nithyashree comes across as a high grounded and friendly teenager. The grueling schedules and highly competitive show did not hinder her from making some very close friends with the other talented Indian Idol contestants. Nithyashree was hailed by the celebrity guests and judges as one of the promising talents in the field of playback singing and many have expressed their intention to work with her in their future projects.
Rotary Club of Madras is indeed proud to present its Young Achiever Award for year 2015-16 to Ms. Nithyashree Venkataramanan, with hope and blessings that this talented singing sensation will win many more accolades and become a true idol for future young achievers in the search of fame and excellence.
