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.

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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.

TO CONFIRM: Attendance figure. Something like "A full house of nearly 185 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 were 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 on the evening to accept the proceeds on the Foundation's behalf and to speak about where the support goes.

The amount raised. This deserves its own sentence and its own weight. Suggested form: "Together, that evening, we raised $2000 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 with 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 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.