Dallas, TX: Telugu Association of North Texas (TANTEX) conducted the TANA-MAA TV Indo American Super Singer competitions at Fowler Middle School in Plano, TX on May 30th 2009.
Dr. Sridhar Reddy Korsapati, TANTEX President welcomed the Judges, Participants and audience in the auditorium packed beyond its capacity and also thanked TANA-MAA TV for giving an opportunity for TANTEX to host the show in Dallas.
Prasad Thotakura, TANA Secretary said “this is the first time in the USA to conduct such program; two finalists from this show would go to 17th TANA Conference in Chicago to compete in finals. MAA-TV judges decide the finalists on the main stage at TANA Conference”.
Prasad Thotakura introduced judges - famous music director Koti son of Yester years famous music director Saluru Rajeswara Rao, Censor Board member Vamsee Ramaraju, prominent local Cardiologist Dr. Srinivas Reddy Alla and Famous Tollywood Singer Vijayalaxmi to the audience and started the program.
Venkat Mulukutla, TANTEX Cultural Chair acted as master of ceremonies and announced that a total of 26 participants from all over the Texas region participated in this preliminary singing competition with high energy and great enthusiasm.
The contest went through three rounds, similar to MAA TV Super singer guidelines. The judges came up with their valuable suggestions for each and every participant. The judgment was based on the points system and the marks were awarded based on a scale of 10 considering the following
- Song Selection
- Sur and Taal
- Pronunciation and fidelity to the original lyric
- Voice Quality
- Overall presentation / performance
In the first round a total of 10 singers were selected out of 26, in the second round 4 were selected out of 10 and in the third and final round 2 were selected out 4.
The final round with 4 participants had gone thru nerve wrecking, intense moments with an absolute silence in the auditorium while the singers show cased their brilliance thru their singing skills.
It has been a very challenging task for the Judges to pick 2 winners out of the 4 finalists Priya Parvathaneni, Madhuri Chivukula, Srujana Aduri and Gayathri Kandadai.
All the 4 finalists performed so brilliantly but finally Madhuri Chivukula from Houston and Srujana Aduri from Dallas emerged as winners. Madhuri is a Software engineer by profession and Valli Srujana is an Oracle DBA by Profession.
In the final round Madhuri sang ‘Ee Swasa lo Cherithe’ song from the movie Nenunnanu and Valli Srujana sang ‘Rayi naina kaka pothini rama padamu sokaga’ from the movie Gorantha Deepam.
Famous music director Koti released the musical album specially created for children by Laxmi Suribotla and gave the first copy to Prasad Thotakura, TANA Secretary.
“It is very surprising to see this much of great talent in Dallas and it is a great opportunity for NRI’s to get into the main stream Movie singing. It gives me an immense pleasure to act as one of the judges for this unique singing competition that was organized for the first time in the USA by TANA_MAA TV hosted by TANTEX. I hope all these 26 participants would take my suggestions and grow up to professional singing careers.” Koti said
An enthusiastic crowd of more than 350 people commuting from all over Dallas turned up and enjoyed the musical extravaganza.
Suresh Manduva, TANTEX Joint Secretary in his vote of thanks message thanked all participants, attendees, EC members, volunteers, judges, sound, video and photographers, the school management and Aahar Restaurant for extending their excellent cooperation.
