Sangeetha Sandhya: An Evening of Music, In Service of Something Larger

Apollo Music Foundation's inaugural concert. Friday, August 7, 2026. Thamil Isai Kalaamanram of Ontario, Scarborough.

• 

• 

Sandhya is the hour when day gives way to evening: the threshold, the turning. It is an hour that Carnatic music has always loved. The ragas soften, the hall quiets, and something in the room leans forward. It felt like the right name for a first concert, and the right name for a beginning.

On Friday, August 7, Apollo Music Foundation presented Sangeetha Sandhya at the Thamil Isai Kalaamanram of Ontario in Scarborough. It was our inaugural concert, and the first of what we hope will be many evenings where the music we love is put in the service of the community that raised us.

Every dollar raised that evening goes to the Scarborough Health Network Foundation. A full house nearly 185 people joined us.

Why a concert, and why this one

Apollo Music Foundation was founded by two siblings who grew up inside this music: Girija Mayuree Baskaran, a Carnatic vocalist, and Aran Aathavan Baskaran, a mridangist. The idea behind the foundation is simple, and perhaps a little old-fashioned. A kutcheri is already a gathering. People come, they sit together, they listen. If a community is going to assemble anyway, that assembly can be made to do some good.

Scarborough Health Network serves the neighbourhoods many of us live in, work in, and have been treated in. Choosing SHN Foundation as our first beneficiary was not a difficult decision. It was the obvious one.

We were honoured to welcome Ms. Vani Visva of the Scarborough Health Network Foundation, who joined us that evening to accept the proceeds on the Foundation's behalf and to speak about where the support goes. "Together, in a single evening, we raised $2,000 for the Scarborough Health Network Foundation."

The artists

Seven musicians shared the stage. Each of them gave an evening of their life to a first-time foundation that had nothing to show but an idea, and we are grateful.

•        Girija Mayuree Baskaran, vocal

•        Namika Vasanthakumar, violin

•        Aran Aathavan Baskaran, mridangam

•        Thushanth Sriskandarajah, ghatam

•        Shakisan Rajaprabakaran, khanjira

•        Risigesh Nivakaran, tabla

•        Mythili Paladinesh, tanpura

It is worth pausing on the percussion. A Carnatic ensemble carrying mridangam, ghatam, khanjira and tabla together is a rare breadth of sound, and the layering of it gave the evening a texture we did not entirely anticipate when we planned it.

And a word for the tanpura, which no one applauds. Mythili held the drone steady for the length of the concert: the ground everything else stood on. Anyone who has sung knows what an unwavering shruti is worth.

The venue

Our thanks to the Thamil Isai Kalaamanram of Ontario, which gave Sangeetha Sandhya its room. A hall is not a neutral thing. It decides how sound travels, how close the audience sits, and how a first-time organizer feels walking in at four in the afternoon with a list of things that could still go wrong. The staff made the day straightforward, and on a first concert that is worth more than we can say.

Sound, light, and the record of the evening

An evening like this leaves very little behind unless someone is working to keep it.

Our sound engineer, Sudharshan, shaped what the room actually heard. In Carnatic music, where a single voice has to sit in balance against four percussion instruments without any of them being flattened, that work is the difference between a concert and a noise.

J Magic Photography and Velorin Films captured the evening in stills and in motion. Much of what we will be able to share of Sangeetha Sandhya, and much of what we will be able to show anyone who asks what Apollo Music Foundation does, exists because they were there.

Most of all, the audience

Every seat sold that evening was a decision someone made. To spend a Friday night in a hall listening to Carnatic music. To back a foundation that had never staged anything before. To trust that the money would go where we said it would.

That trust is the entire foundation. There is no version of Apollo Music Foundation that works without it, and there is no cheque going to the Scarborough Health Network Foundation that was not, first, a ticket bought by someone who chose to come.

Thank you. Sincerely, and without qualification. You did not attend a fundraiser. You were the fundraiser.

What comes next

Sangeetha Sandhya was a beginning, and we intend to treat it as one. We are working toward the next concert, and toward building Apollo Music Foundation into something that can do this reliably, year after year, for causes that serve the communities of the Greater Toronto Area.

If you were with us on August 7, you have already done the important part. If you were not, there will be another sandhya.