Aruna Sairam and Dominique Vellard (India)

TITLE/GENRE: Heaven and earth: Carnatic sacred songs & amp; Gregorian Chants

Padma Shri Aruna Sairam

India's renowned classical vocalist Padma Shri Awardee Aruna Sairam, is regarded as the Music Ambassador of India, for successfully taking Indian music to the global arena. Steeped in bhava-expression and classical divinity, Aruna Sairam’s music evokes bhakti-devotion in every listener’s soul.

She has dazzled audiences at prestigious musical venues in India and around the world through her scintillating performances and refreshing approach.

Her music has won her several awards and recognitions worldwide including one of India’s civilian honors - the Padma Shri in 2009 - presented in recognition of distinguished contributions to Indian culture and society. She was also awarded the Indira Sivasailam Endowment Medal in 2012. Recently, she has been bestowed with the Sangeet Natak Akademi (India’s premier national institution for music and dance) Award for the year 2013. The US Proclamation of Excellence” was awarded to her.

The US National Flag which was flown atop the Capitol building, was handed over to her and a special Congressional proclamation recognizing her musical contribution was issued by the U.S House of Representatives at a function held in New York in August 2008. In 2007 she received the Tamil Nadu State award of ‘Kalaimamani’.

Dominique Vellard

The major areas explored by Dominique Vellard in his musical carreer are rooted in his childhood experiences -as a choirboy at Notre-Dame de Versailles- that gave rise to his passionate love of Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, french composers of the seventeenth century and Bach organ music and chorales.

Soon after completing his studies at the Versailles conservatory, Dominique Vellard decided to concentrate his work on medieval and Renaissance repertoires, fields in which he felt he was entirely free to express his musical aesthetics .

Alongside his “medieval carrer”, Dominique Vellard has kept up his involvement in other repertoires, exploring the fruitful possibilities of encounters between the earliest works in his repertoire and traditions as varied as North and south Indian Classic repertories, Breton Guerz and Spanish traditions.

Dominique Vellard has made more than forty recordings, whether as soloist, conductor, or at the head of the Ensemble Gilles Binchois, which he has directed since 1979.

He has taught at the Schola Cantorum in Basel since 1982. He is also the Artistic director of the festival “Les Rencontres Internationales de Musique Médiévale du Thoronet”.

As a composer, he writes regularly, since 1999, for the Ensemble Gilles Binchois and for friends, mostly vocal music : A first CD of his vocal music “Vox nostra resonet” is edited by the record company GLOSSA.