The 2024 competition fee is $40 per participant per category. However, children of SIFAA members pay only $20 per participant per category. This applies only for family or Core membership. The payment is due at the time of the Registration.  When you pay with PayPal, you will receive an automated email of your payment.  That will be your confirmation.  Please save that as we may need it to verify at a later time.  No need to forward it to us unless we request.

The competition will be in-person. 

Senior, Junior, Sub-junior participation is open only to North Carolina residents. 

Thillana is a new category for participants in the age group 14-21. 

Advanced Category participants will initially be open only to NC residents and they should register as per the procedure outlined here. Based on the number of NC residents who register for this category, Out of State participants may be allowed to participate on a first-cum first-served basis and should reach out to SIFAA by email without registering now. 

Participants should meet the age limits of the category they wish to compete. However, the First place winners from a previous year can choose to participate either in their age group or the next age group (For ex. A First place Junior vocal winner from 2023 can compete in either Junior level or Senior level vocal, even if they are younger than the age limit set for Senior level, but cannot compete in both levels). Also, participants can compete only in Senior or Advanced but not both for the same category (For example, Senior Violin and Advanced Violin is not allowed but Senior Violin and Advanced Vocal is allowed). 

If a participant has previously won first place in an Advanced category, then he/she is not eligible to participate again in that category.  Previous Advanced category winners can participate in Thillana this year.

Each individual is allowed to participate in multiple categories within the age group they are registering in. For example, the same student can participate in Junior Vocal and Junior instrumental. Please fill out a separate registration and payment for each. 

Please note there are no separate categories for specific instruments, etc. SIFAA reserves the right to combine or split categories before the competition based on the number of participants registered.

Advanced Vocal and Instrumental might be viewed as one category either due to the number of participants or due to judges’ feedback. Advanced Mridangam, Kanjira, Ghatam and other percussion instruments will be combined under Advanced Percussion. 

In the Advanced category, judges may ask questions and/or pose challenges.

Participants should have the approval of their teachers before registering. 

Competition is open only to  Individual participants; group participation is not allowed.

The participants’ orders in each competition will occur randomly. Anyone who misses his/her turn will be moved to the end of that competition.

Each participant should make their own arrangements for Shruthi.

In ALL categories for Vocal and Instrumental, the participant must specify two choices from which the judges will decide which should be presented. For Sub-Junior Percussion, the participant can specify one tala.  All other Percussion categories have to specify two choices. You will have the opportunity till Sept 15th  to provide your choices. We will send another form to get this information around Sep 8th 2024

Krithi categories can register only Krithis.

Time limits will be strictly enforced.

All instruments should be tuned prior to your turn in the competition. No separate time will be given for tuning.

The judges will have full discretion to give more than one first/second/third prize or not declare a prize in any of the categories in the competition.

Decisions of the judges will be Final. Judges pool comprises out of town Carnatic music teachers/artists and professional artists from India.

The Registration fee is non-refundable.  If a participant is not able to participate, the registration fee will be a tax-deductible donation and SIFAA will provide a receipt for tax credits.

Prizes will be announced after the SIFAA featured concert on Sep 22, 2024. This concert is ticketed for non-members and fee for SIFAA members, The student participant will be able to attend for free.

First place Winners of the Senior and Advanced categories except Thillana will be invited to participate in future SIFAA programs  (Senior – 20 min concert and Advanced – 1 hour concert).

SIFAA reserves the right to update the criteria for the competition.

• OUTSTANDING – It reflects most outstanding performance for the category and age group of participants being evaluated. It is worthy of the distinction of being recognized as among the very best.
• EXCELLENT – It reflects a very high level of performance in many respects, but a step below that of an Outstanding rating. Yet, it is a performance of distinctive quality with a lot of promise.
• VERY GOOD – It is awarded for a very good performance, but one that needs a little more polish. It is a commendable accomplishment and shows clear potential.
• GOOD – It describes a good quality performance which can be certainly improved with more hard work and experience.
• FAIR – It reflects a creditable performance in most aspects, but a step below that of GOOD rating. There is definite scope for improvement which is achievable with increased practice and focus.
• AVERAGE -The student needs to really focus on the fundamentals and improve their performance with lots of work and additional guidance