MITHAS, the premier non-profit cultural organization that has been bringing South Asian performing arts to the Greater Boston area,  presented S.P. Balasubrahmanyam and S.P. Shailaja along with a huge orchestra of 12 performers to the light music lovers in the Greater Boston area on the 10th of September 2006 at the Natick High School.

From his first song ‘Omkaara’ from the film Sankara Bharanam that won him national award to the last patriotic rendering of one of NTR earliest songs calling for Vande mataram, SP Balasubhramanyam was a wonderful entertainer. Every minute that he came on stage was joy to all his fans and there were many in the appreciative audience. The initial euphoria that erupted stayed through the entire length of the concert. Sister S.P.Sailaja and the 12 member orchestra did well to enhance the evening’s repertoire of music.

It was a stellar performance from a man affectionately called Balu who has recently celebrated his 60th birthday. He has sung over a staggering 39,000 plus songs in a span of 39 years, in most Indian languages which include several albums of contemporary Indian music, private albums for devotional songs and movies, which is a world record, as acknowledged by the Guinness Book of World Records.

There was plenty of energy and excitement in the audience and SPB tried hard to please everybody. Songs in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam as well as in Hindi were given their due respect with SPB announcing that “Language is never a barrier for music” The show delivered to its audience. SPB demonstrated his extraordinary versatility and there was a general slant to songs of Ilayaraja, K. Vishwanath and A.R.Rahman.

The popular fare was sung by Mallikarjuna, who regaled the audience with hip hop numbers and was joined by another talented singer Purnima.
There was lot of requests from the audience and SPB jokingly remarked that to be able to fulfill each of them he will have to come back to Boston again. On stage he was most gracious and accommodating. Fans of all language groups were totally delighted no matter, young and old.

Dakshin which held a banquet dinner for the evening for the artists and participants  at their restaurant in Framingham outdid themselves according to MITHAS volunteers with a fabulous array of dishes. Overall  the concert was a treat for all ages where people could be seen humming the tunes long after it was over.

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