Sidhanath Buyao and Lorna Cordeiro, in a spectacular performance, enthralled the Goans settled in America at the 11th North American Goan Convention held in Detroit, Michigan.
The three-day Convention held from July 6-8 at the Holiday Inn Convention Center included performances by attendees, dinner cruise on the Detroit River overlooking Canada, seminar on foreign taxes, special activities for second generation Goans, a screening of the Konkani movie O’Maria and other entertainment.
LORNA rocks Detroit
The Goan cultural troupe under the banner of Buyao Theater Goem arrived in Detroit on the morning of the 7th and gave a performance of Konkani songs on the same day in the afternoon. Sidhanath Buyao led the cultural troupe with US based Goans, Uma Kelekar and Sanjeet Hegde Desai, who also sang a few Konkani numbers. A crowd of over two hundred people danced to the tunes of Sidhanath Buyao’s songs and other hit Konkani songs composed by Late Ulhas Buyao.
AS DID SIDHANATH BUYAO
The first session on Sunday, July 8th started with a presentation by Prashant Naik, former president of Konkani Bhasha Mandal. The theme of the presentation was “Goa Yesterday and Today”, which was well received by the attendees.
The grand finale of the convention was a mesmerizing performance by Goa’s nightingale Lorna and Michigan’s Agnelo Fernandes. The scheduled performance by Lorna was extended by 45 minutes, with the enthused crowd demanding more songs from Lorna. The program culminated with a joint performance by Sidhanath Buyao and Lorna. Yatin Talaulikar and Norman Cardozo accompanied on tabla and keyboard respectively, and Prashant Naik and Sanjeet Hegde Desai were the master of ceremonies.
The convention was coordinated and organized by Mahendra Kenkre , Chairperson of the 2012 North American Goan Convention with support from Shama Kenkre, Nilesh and Neha Bhandare, Vivek and Renee Kaisare , Sudin and Rupali Kamat and Dr. Anil and Vanita Shirwaikar. The major sponsors of the event were Dr. Gajanan and Vidya Gaitonde, Dr. Rajiv and Seema Hede, Dr.Madhav and Hema Naik, Dr. Arun and Dr. Shubhada Sawardekar, Dr. Anil and Vanita Shirwaikar, Dr. Rajnikant and Dr. Rajani Usgaonkar, Arun and Swati Virginkar, and State Bank of India, New York.
After all the trauma of visas being refused to the stars of the show, both Lorna and Sidhanath, in his concluding address, Mahendra Kenkre thanked the officials at the US Consulate in Mumbai for granting visas to the Goan artists.
