A musical concert to support Tennessee flood victims

MEMPHIS: Music has no boundaries and in fact in Memphis, a group named “Membeats” in association with

Indian Association of Memphis

presented “Musical Journey through India “concert at Houston High School in Germantown on August 25, 2019. The concert was meant to help for the relief of

Tennessee flood victims

from June 25.


All proceeds from this musical event were donated to the city of Germantown, TN. The chief guest for the event, Germantown Mayor Mike Palazzolo whose presence made the event more significant. He addressed the audience and thanked the community for coming forward in support of the cause.

The afternoon event was marked with few energetic and talented singers who transcend the boundaries with a concert of Bollywood songs. Many melodious golden era Bollywood songs took several hundreds of people back to a few decades and won hearts of the full capacity audience in the auditorium. Membeats presented Mehfil of Bollywood Classics and their songs not only made the heartbeats but filled with exuberance.

A blend of new and old Bollywood songs kept the audiences dancing to the tunes all throughout. Membeats, the group with diverse people from the East to the West and to the South and the Northern parts of India working in various professions from healthcare professions to medical doctors to engineers to entrepreneurs. They all made it possible together to put up a fantastic display of unique rich quality musical performance for their love of music and intense devotion, passion for perfection and excellence.

The group gifted the audience with the taste of Raag Desh and Raag Bhairavi from the land of Elvis and B.B Kings. Santosh and Samhita Nair - the father-daughter duo presented evergreen classic compositions of renowned composer R.D.Burman from blockbuster Bollywood films. Originally sung by Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhosle, the rendition by Santosh Nair and Samhita Nair made the audience's heart filled with joy.

Reena Shivarudra

makes a fantastic singing debut in Memphis with this melodious Kannada (Indian regional language song ) from the film "Sanju Weds Geetha". Reena Santosh lends her sweet melodious voice to this romantic song originally performed by Shreya Ghoshal and composed by Jesse Gift.

The show stellar was a classically trained singer

Shri Anand Navadikar

who conceptualized the entire program and he himself delivered a wide range of melodies. He is known to have performed in various other events in the past including 'Bruhan Maharashtra Mandal' Gala in Detroit in 2017. Anand Navadikar exquisitely performs the classic Omkaara Naadaanusandhanam in the Telugu language from the National Award-winning film, Shankarabharanam. This song is originally sung by S.P. Balasubramanium and S. Janaki, with music composed by K.V.Mahadevan, also earned S.P.B. a national award for best Male Playback singer in 1980.

The poised presence of Manjit Kaur, who is representing the city and IAM both board of directors: leadership and various other positions made the event more absorbing with her podium presence.

Membeats spread the culture and love to the people in Mid-South USA with their hours of entertainment in the form of their quality music presentation and bridged the gap of region and religion. Besides performances by Membeats, the local dance group DanceVersify also put up scintillating dance performances and Katie Bug who is a ballet dancer gave an awesome performance along with Sam’s singing. The sound production was wonderfully managed by

Anand Arvind Navadikar

, background visuals by Leena Wagle, A/v support by

Brandon Armbruster

from peak audiovisual and videography by Aman Patel.

Though the event was purely singing in more than 10 regional languages, it was a unique effort by the Indian community to go an extra mile to support the Germantown flood victims. The IAM youth committee needs special mention for their efforts at the ticket counter.