Performances
Echoes of Tulunadu
Alva Kuuto, Courtesy of Alva Kuuto.
Join us for Echoes of Tulunadu by Alva Kuuto, an indie band that presents contemporary voices in the ancient Tulu language.
Language lies at the heart of our identities: the vehicle by which we express thought and feeling and the medium through which we receive intergenerational wisdom. The vocabulary that informs not only our hopes for the future but also our memories, whether a mother’s lullaby or the names of family favourite recipes.
Inspired and informed by this understanding, Alva Kuuto, translating to ‘Alva’s collective/group,’ was initiated by Praveen Alva in 2022 to take Tulu music to diverse platforms and stages across regions. At present the group comprises Praveen Alva on vocals and acoustic guitar, Abhilash Shet on bass guitar, Anshuman Upadhyay on drums and Siddharth Pradeep on electric guitar.
In this performance, the band will involve and engage the audience through stories and memories of the southwestern coastal region, reimagining folk melodies and narratives via contemporary sensibilities and arrangements.
Bookings
Praveen Alva
Born and brought-up in the coastal City of Mangalore, Praveen Alva grew up surrounded and fascinated by the rich culture of the land. Being creatively inclined, he was always involved in the theatre groups during his academic years, writing and performing plays and street plays in Kannada, Hindi and Tulu. He is a self-taught guitarist and songwriter; he writes songs in his mother-tongue Tulu. His songs talk about varied moods and topics, about the longing for his grandmother, about his village, a feast, a boogeyman, about wings and fire, about power and manipulation etc. He has released two singles till date ‘Prarthaney’ (Prayer) in 2021 and ‘Ninna Suttaya’ (Around You) in 2023. ‘Prarthaney’ was nominated in a few Independent International Film Festivals and has won accolades under ‘The Best Music Video Category.’ Praveen regularly performs his set at different spaces through Open Mics and curated/ticketed gigs. He finds his songs and performance as a medium to talk about the coastal region and more importantly about the language ‘Tulu.’
