Naadham Academy for Music and Dance
Vasudevan Govindarajan
Vasudevan hails from a family of distinguished musicians. He began his training under Guru Sri. K. M. Vaidhyanathan, later learned to play the kanjira from Sri. G. Harishankar and enriched his technique under Sri. Karaikudi R. Mani. A graded artist of All India Radio, Sri Vasu accompanied many musicians and dancers and performed extensively in India, Europe, North America, South America, The Caribbean Islands and Canada.
Sri Vasu participated in the Caribbean Drum Festival in Guyana with African drummers. He also participated in the International Drum Festival and the International Jazz Festival in Montreal.
He collaborated with Jazz, Iranian, and Chinese musicians to highlight the versatility and adaptibility of the mridangam's sound to different musical traditions. These pieces were well received by the audience and the press. Vasu was featured on Busy Bodies, a program by CBC Television and has provided mridangam accompaniment for the films "Welcome To Canada" and "Faces of the Hands" which were made by the National Film Board of Canada.
Shri Vasu established Naadham Academy for Dance and Music in 1988 and has since been training young students of various cultural backgrounds and ages in mridangam. As a teacher, Vasu has been an active promoter of Indian art and culture while keeping an openness towards other cultures in the spirit of cross cultural communication. He has given a number of workshops and demonstrations in the University of Montreal, McGill University, Concordia University, the University of Sherbrooke and the Sivananda Yoga Organization's Ashrams and Centres, in order to inspire more Canadians to develop a passion for percussion.
