Sumana Chandrasekhar has a Master’s degree in Economics and a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism. Sumana has been with IFA for over a decade and has worked on various projects and grant programmes at the Foundation. Currently, she leads the programme team and also holds joint responsibility for the Arts Practice programme. With a keen interest in music education, Sumana has been part of the core team that designed the music education component of ‘Kali Kalisu’, an art education teacher training initiative that involved government school teachers across the state of Karnataka. Since then, she has been conducting music and sound workshops for teacher-educators, trainee teachers, and children. She has put together the music/sound module of the arts education resource book for DEd pre-service teachers and teacher educators in Karnataka. She has also presented papers on music and music education and has performed in India and abroad. Sumana is a performing Carnatic vocalist and a ghatam player as well. As an independent researcher, she has been studying the cultural history of the ghatam in Carnatic music. For this, she has received a grant from the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). She also received a grant from the Sandbox Collective-Goethe-Institute to create an experimental performance work based on the story of the ghatam.
Speciality: Vocal