As part of International Women’s Day celebrations, ‘Veena’ Doreswamy Iyengar Memorial Trust had organised a three-day music festival 6 to 8 March in Bengaluru, featuring eminent women vocalists. The festival was inaugurated by the Jeeyar of the Yathiraj Mutt, who also extended his blessings to the festival by providing use of the auditorium.

The Oppilal School of Music and Fine Arts in Chennai presented a three-day festival of concerts and other events on the occasion of Kandhar Shashti Vizha in 2020. It featured performances by their students, and others. There was vocal and instrumental music, talks and short concerts by senior musicians.

The Music Academy had allocated two slots for violin concerts (A. Kanyakumari, Lalgudi G.J.R. Krishnan and Vijayalakshmi), three for veena (Jayanthi Kumaresh, N. Ananthanarayanan, Ramana Balachandran) and one for flute (J.B. Sruthi Sagar) in the instrumental music category.

Besides playing as a duo, both of you have been accompanists too. What is it to accompany vocalists and other instrumentalists on stage? (Vijayalakshmi continues to provide accompaniment in concerts, Krishnan stopped a long while ago.)