Meet Vibha Janakiraman, the Indian American Teen Who Played Violin At the White House During Modi’s State Visit
- The 17-year-old, who will begin her bachelor’s degree at Juilliard in the fall, performed Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo at the June 22 ceremony.
Pennsylvania teen Vibha Janakiraman began studying the violin at age 6. Since then the 17-year-old Indian American from West Chester has performed at various prestigious venues and was among this year’s U.S Presidential Scholars in the arts. The young musician added another feather to her cap this month — performing at the White House during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent official state visit. She performed Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo at the ceremony.
“What an honor and privilege to perform at the White House at the arrival ceremony of Prime Minister Modi and to be a representation of the Indian American community,” she wrote on Instagram. “I had the most inspiring performance view.”
Janakiraman who graduated from the Juilliard School’s pre-college division earlier this year, studied the violin at the Settlement Music School. A recent graduate of the PA Leadership Charter School, she will begin her bachelor’s degree at Juilliard in the fall, studying with Catherine Cho and Itzhak Perlman. She currently plays on a 1855 J.B. Vuillaume, on loan through the Tarisio Trust.
Previously, she played with the Gray Charitable Trust Advanced Scholarship Piano Trio at the Settlement School and has performed as a soloist with several orchestras in the Philadelphia region, according to her profile on From the Top, a non-profit organization dedicated to celebrating the stories, talents, and character of young classically-trained musicians. “She has a deep connection to both Western and South Indian classical music and also enjoys studying math and Sanskrit,” the profile adds.
In 2018, she won the Estella Hillersohn scholarship, awarded by the Ambler Symphony. She was also the winner of the 2019 Philadelphia Young Artists Orchestra competition and was a soloist with the Orchestra
Apart from Janakiraman, the White House ceremony included Penn Masala, the world’s first South Asian A cappella group. The group brought in Indian flavor to the event by presenting their rendition of the popular Bollywood song “Chhaiya Chhaiya” from the 1998 film “Dil Se.”