Nashville Judges
Cheryl Stewart
Cheryl is currently the Director of Creative Services with United Way of Greater
Nashville and has been with the organization since 2000. She is passionate about engaging the community and educating others about community needs and how to address them.
She has served as Marketing Chair for the statewide organization of the United
Ways of Tennessee and as a member of Williamson Inc. served on the board of
Youth Leadership Brentwood in multiple roles. Cheryl and her husband Gordie have made Nashville their home for more than 35 years.
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Dr. Sumita Chakraborti-Ghosh
Dr. Sumita Chakraborti-Ghosh serves as the Professor of Curriculum Instruction/Special Education and as a coordinator of the Doctoral program at the Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education at Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN. Dr. Chakraborti-Ghosh also serves as an Executive Director of their private non-profit foundation named Soumit’s World Foundation, www.soumitsworld.org, which provides support for academic, artistic, and personal health development to fulfill the dream of underprivileged children around the world.
Preeti Gajjar
Preeti Gajjar is an Indian origin renowned playback singer. She was born in Rajkot, Gujarat - India. Preeti belongs to a family of artists and musicians. Music runs in her family for generations. Preeti started learning Hindustani Classical vocals at the age of 6 from her mother. She then continued learning various styles of singing (semi-classical, light vocal, ghazals, folk, etc.). Preeti predominantly sings in Gujarati and Hindi languages.
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Chris kearney
Voice English and Instruments judge
Neil Andrews
Neil Andrews moved from Chicago 30 years ago and now resides with his wife Kati in Franklin, Tennessee in a log cabin halfway up a hill in the woods.
He has done international production work with Irish and Estonian worship teams/artists, Jon Anderson (Yes), Chester Thompson (Frank Zappa, Weather Report, and Genesis), Heatwave, Baby Face, and Larry London. Neil has created, played on, and produced international commercial work and music for clients Maybelline, United Airlines, Anheuser Busch, Ford, Cartoon Network, and many others.
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Aparna Jagadisan
Aparna Jagadisan founder of Siksha School of Bharatanatyam Franklin, Tennessee, and has been training young talents and interested dancers in the Franklin, Nashville, and Brentwood area since 2016. She is dedicated to providing in-depth training and guidance for interested individuals to become world-class performers in the field of Bharatanatyam.
She works on developing and perfecting a style that would be seamless and fluid while yet retaining the precision, power, and purity - typical of the classical dance form.
SHALINI VEMURI
We introduce you all to Nashville's very own Bharatnatyam dancer Shalini Vemuri, enticing the city with her Natya, lasya, and laya for the past 10 years. Shalini is a household name here who bought a very ancient classical dance form and showed both a traditional and contemporary form of the same. She was initiated into Bharatanatyam by Shmt. Vasanthi Sridhar, at a very early age of 3 specialized in the Tanjavur bani.
Shalini is also trained in Kathak and Kuchipudi and has choreographed extensively for several dance productions over the years, and has performed widely in the USA and India. A regular among all the major Nashville events.
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Harsha Hari
Harsha Hari is the Artistic Director at Mudra School of Dance in Franklin, Tennessee where she trains women and children in the Indian classical dance forms of Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi & Mohiniyattam. She has a Master in Fine Arts in Bharatanatyam and is a performer herself, having performed on various stages in India and abroad.
Michigan Judges
Anagha Huprikar
A versatile Kathak dancer of Jaipur Gharana. Began her Kathak training at Padanyas (पदन्यास) Kathak Dance Institute in Pune under the able guidance of her guru, Pt. Sujata Natu, at the tender age of 6.
Through hard work and perseverance, she completed her Visharad in Kathak with distinction from Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth. She stood first in the University and was awarded a scholarship
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Jyotsna Diwadkar
A Mathematics professor at Wayne State University.
PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, teaching mathematics for close to 30 years.
Writing scripts and emceeing for cultural events.
Facilitating literary discussions
Mathangi
Mathangi is the Founder/Owner/Director of MDC - Mathangi's Dance Company, Michigan's Leading Indian Dance Company. She has been dancing from age 4 and choreographing and teaching dance from age 11. She has been trained in various Indian and International dance forms . She has professionally performed in many high-profile dance shows like Filmfare, Mathraboomi, Cinema express, and many televised dance shows.
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Mrinalini Arkatkar
The founder and teacher of the Gamak Academy were blessed to learn Indian Classical music under the guidance of the great M. V. Patwardhan, son of Pandit Vinayakbua Patwardhan. She attended the S.N.D.T. University from Pune for a master's in music and has performed over 500 concerts in classical and light music all over the USA, Canada, and India. She has composed several Bhajans and Gazals and has accompanied several well-known artists like Mr. Ram Kadam, Mr. Arun Date, and Mr. Shreedhar Phadake
Radhika Shukla
Radhika is a Senior Technology Sales Director at Microsoft with 21 years of extensive leadership experience in the cloud computing and tech industry
She is a renowned Community leader and serves on the Boards of 4 nonprofits: MAI Family Services, MICS, Palav, and Interfaith Leadership Council of Metro Detroit
Mrs. India League of America 2018
Mrs. Entrepreneur International 2019
Mrs. Michigan North America 2020
Top 5 Mrs. North America 2020
Mrs. Congeniality North America and Peoples Choice North America 2020
Mrs. Michigan USA 2021
Mrs. USA 2nd Runner Up 2021
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Sayli Vaidya
The founder of "RaagaBeats" - is a trained singer who has been singing and learning music since her early childhood. A well-known performer and a music teacher in the Detroit area who has given concerts in Michigan and other states and also back home in India.
Sayali has also been a motivated maker of various artistic musical dramas under the banner of "RaagaBeats" to promote and keep the Indian culture, heritage, and values alive and is inspired to do something for the younger generation of America.