In the Fall of 1978, Prof. T. Temple Tuttle of Cleveland State University befriended Ramnad Raghavan after attending a lecture of his at the Niagara chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology.
They began collaborating on a series of projects, and Prof. Tuttle suggested that the Festival move to the university's campus in order to attract and accommodate a larger audience.
The first major growth occurred in 1992, when the festival hosted a jugalbandhi featuring N. Ramani, Mandolin U. Srinivas, and Zakir Hussein, who were accompanied by A. Kanyakumari and Guruvayoor Dorai.
Since then, the festival has regularly featured star musicians and dancers from India, and also commissioned major dance productions with original music compositions, for their world premier in Cleveland.
By 2002, the festival had grown to span across the entire week following Easter Sunday into the next weekend, with a series of music and dance performances.
Notable artists over the years included star performers like Nithyasree Mahadevan, Ranjani-Gayatri, Sudha Raghunathan, Lalgudi Jayaraman, K.V.
Krishna, Thiruvarur Bhakthavatsalam, T S Nandakumar, Nagai Muralidharan, Mannargudi Easwaran, Srimushnam Raja Rao, S.Sowmya, Trichy Sankaran as well as stalwarts such as T. Muktha (in her last public performance), Parassalla Ponnamma, Thanjavur Sankara Iyer, and Kuzhikkarai Viswalingam.
The festival also gained a great deal of visibility across the world through regular coverage on Indian television,[6] as well as media partners providing live streaming of the event.
[7] In 2019, the centerpiece of the festival, the Pancharatna Krithi singing in remembrance of Saint Tyagaraja shifted from the Waejten Auditorium at CSU Music building to the Wolstein Center arena to accommodate the growth since the Waejten couldn't accommodate the crowd due to fire code regulations, In 1993, the festival started hosting a music competition for children and youth across North America, with visiting musicians from India as the judges.
There is a mix of vocalists and instrumentalists, and the committee has made it a point to include veena and nadaswaram artists each year to support these traditional instruments.
These artists have been featured alongside senior musicians from India, and have also conceived and executed programs independently at the behest of the Aradhana Committee to perform in Cleveland, as well as to tour the United States.
[11] Each year, they select children from across the US, and put them through a rigorous six-month training program via video-conferencing, culminating in group performances at the festival in Cleveland.
The festival primarily features American youth performers of classical music and dance, but also includes musicians based in India.
Through partnerships in India, the committee has also promoted concert performances of Indian-American youth in Chennai sabhas, as well as on national television programs such as Nadaneerajanam in Tirupati.