Bengaluru: Nilanjanaa, a 12-year-old, a Class 8 student, is all set to perform at the famous Carnegie Hall in New York.

Nilanjanaa had sent a recording of her performing Frank Sinatra’s popular jazz number “Fly me to the Moon” as the entry to the Golden Voices of America competition in March this year. She was declared as the winner in the Jazz category.
 
Now she will join an elite class of Indian artists like Ustad Zakir Hussain and Pandit Shivakumar Sharma who have earlier performed at the prestigious Carnegie Hall. She will be performing the same song which led her to victory, at the famous hall in October this year.
 
Nilanjanaa is all excited to deliver her biggest performance yet. She said,“I’m really excited and am looking forward to it. I’ve pumped up my training sessions and I am going to give my best at Carnegie Hall.”

She is the only child of Jayant Ananthkrishnan and Sangeeta Ananth who reside at JP Nagar in the city.

Her parents said that people initially discouraged them from teaching their daughter western music as it was not popular in the south.

Her father Jayant thanked her music school, Taaqademy, founded by musicians Rajeev Rajagopal and Bruce Lee Mani.

Sangeeta Ananth, Nilanjanaa’s mother, said that her daughter used to hum tunes very well since a very young age and so was sent for Carnatic music classes when she turned six.

Nilanjanaa, a left handed, refused to attend the Carnatic music classes as she was expected to keep tabs on her tala using her right hand and this used to upset her a lot.

She joined Taaqademy in 2014 and learnt western music.
 
The Golden Voices of America will be felicitating her teacher at Taaqademy, Ragini Ramanathan, for having trained her.