To encourage Telugu youth and local talent in North America, TANA is taking steps to organize various cultural programs and competitions aimed at entertaining and enriching the Telugu people in North America and giving them an opportunity to show their talents. Early this year, TANA, in association with MAA TV, conducted the first ever North American continent-wide Telugu musical talent search competition to identify the best singers.

In view of the great success of that “TANA-MAA TV Super Singer Contest” and because of such a huge response from the participants and audiences, going forward, TANA decided to conduct a similar TANA Super Singer Contest and, now, a Super Dancer Contest, as well, every year in collaboration with popular Telugu TV Channels like MAA TV/TV 9. These winners will be recognized and honored during the TANA Conferences in the presence of prominent guests attending the TANA Conferences. Very soon, TANA will begin requesting entries from participants of different age groups for these competitions. These competitions will be conducted in several regions determined by the TANA Cultural Committee. The details of these programs will be announced soon. Please access www.tana.org periodically for more updates on these activities.

Just to refresh your memory, the “TANA-MAA TV Super Singer Contest” was conducted in three stages, and the semifinals and finals were held from July 2-4th on the Main stage of TANA 17th conference (in Chicago). More than 400 talented singers participated in the preliminary competitions conducted in seven cities (Dallas, San Jose, Orlando, Detroit, New Jersey, Washington DC and Canada). Famous playback singers (Koti, Anand, Sunita, Mallikarjun, Vijayalakshmi, Shilpa and Deepika) judged the preliminary competitions.

Famous playback singer Mano, National award winning lyricist Suddala Ashok Teja, famous folk singer and writer Gorati Venkanna, and Nandi award winning and elite film lyricist Chandra Bose judged the Semifinals and Finals. The whole event was anchored by the world-renowned, Suma and our local singer Rajeev Nedunuri. This event was conducted in prime-time on the main stage of TANA 17th conference in front of more than 8,000 people and lasted into the wee of hours of the night, and the audience still wanted more! MAA TV later broadcasted the finals worldwide to Telugu people around the globe.