SEASON 2013-14
A SURVEY BY CRITICS AND RASIKAS A smorgasbord of delights V. Kalidas
t had all the trappings of a Grammy Awards night! The moment of truth Iarrived when after a spell of mangala isai from the nagaswaram set the pace, Sudha Ragunathan was conferred the title of Sangita Kalanidhi, the most THE HINDU COURTESY: prestigious title of the Chennai music festival at that shrine of musical homage, the Madras Music Academy. The swirl of Kanchipuram silks, dazzling diamonds (American costume jewellery?), shimmering “angavastrams” and a liberal sprinkling of the latest smart phones added to the ambience. It was indeed an occasion to be seen and spotted by the cognoscenti. The Chennai global music festival of 2013-14 may easily be described as one Sudha Ragunathan receiving the Sangita Kalanidhi award from Andhra Pradesh of the most remarkable in recent years. Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan as N. Murali, President, Music Academy looks on A maze of organisations numbering over audience; and the up-and-coming youngsters who prove popular too and 50 churning out roughly 2000 concerts, generate considerable excitement with their infectious enthusiasm. dance recitals, bhajans, discourses, work shops and lecdems over a jam-packed This year’s festival earned the global prefix with a greater stamp of three-week period cannot be rivalled by authority, thanks to several parallel series of concerts that featured NRIs, any other global festival, though other largely from the U.S.A. They did come in from Australia and Canada musical extravaganzas like the Salzburg, too. Yet another smaller group from England proved equal to their peers Helsinki or Edinburgh International do across the Pacific Ocean. Not to be outdone by the West, the Singapore have prodigious variety but over shorter Indian Fine Arts Society showcased talents from the city-state. A bunch of periods. The Chennai `Season’ runs from Malaysian dancers too made their presence felt during the festival. th st 15 December to 1 January, but it has Western classical music pianist Anil Srinivasan collaborated in recent years been stretched at both with Sikkil Gurucharan in a specially designed concert titled “Flower ends and the festival virtually runs from Gatherers – Tchaikovsky meets Tyagaraja” at the Russian Cultural 1st December to 31st January and more. Centre. This merits special mention because it added a new dimension The initial accent is on music concerts to the music festival. As part of an ongoing Outreach Project under but later it swings into various dance the Rhapsody banner, Anil Srinivasan and conductor Sudha Raja rode forms, operas and allied productions on the seasonal wave and took Carnatic music to various schools to get with theatre running concurrently. children interested in it through demonstration by well known artists like Mandolin U. Shrinivas. The spread of concerts has in recent years been over three tiers – the veterans At the other end of the spectrum, the craze for their favourite ‘star’ which with their own clutch of fans thronging drove hundreds of fans to park themselves outside the box-office of a their recitals even though many are sabha hall in the so-called chill of the previous wintry Chennai night, bracketed in the morning sessions; the shrouded in woollens, brought back long-lost memories of spending current crop of favourites who pull in nights outside the Chepauk stadium to pick up tickets for Test matches. unimaginable crowds and wow their Carnatic music could not have asked for more.
24 l SRUTI February 2014 Some artists drew mammoth crowds; some others were Hindustani musicians, which would add grandeur and obliged to perform to yawning gaps of emptiness in desolate muscle and expand the base of the concert platform in halls, though they deserved a much better treatment. sabhas. Of course, their appearance is possible only Perhaps it depends on how the cookie crumbles. at a price.
Many of the auditoriums in the city were decked up quite A pleasant surprise this year was the return to the well this year. The importance of having a tastefully done limelight of the queen of Indian instruments, the veena. backdrop was well recognised, contrary to the earlier Apart from other leading veena exponents, Rajesh practice of using age-old drapings mentioning the name Vaidhya demonstrated how vibrant and exciting veena of the sabha on worn-out lettering. Perhaps the sound concerts could be churned out. system and acoustics in some of the halls could be upgraded so that distortions are reduced during the The Chennai global music festival can be made concerts and artists do not often have to gesticulate wildly variegated and multifaceted like the Edinburgh to the sound technicians on duty to either lower or increase Festival if other fringe events and happenings like the the bass or treble or activate the monitors. This was noticed Mylapore Fest, Children’s Mikeless Concert Series in in quite a few halls and needs to be looked into so that the Park, the Pongal festivities, the dance festivals in the concert experience can be made more enriching and Mahabalipuram, Chidambaram and down south, and folk memorable without visual distractions. art from Tamil Nadu are all pooled together and brought It is also high time that toilets were done up, for the under one umbrella. Of course, great care should be very thought of going to some in the sabhas puts one exercised to ensure that the music and dance forms are off, especially when the need arises after a three-hour placed in separate and independent segments so as not time lag. to dilute their intrinsic value or their captive audiences. But an overall cohesive stature given to a broad-based The eateries in the various sabhas were big crowdpullers event with generous government funding would serve – not only those who attended concerts, but quite a well to lift the festival to a much higher level and thus large number of others visited them just to gorge on promote global tourism while providing a thrust to the delicacies not usually offered in the regular restaurants. economy. In the process, quite a few became drawn to the music or religious discourse relayed through the speakers and That the organisers of the festival did not lose sight of tended to gravitate into the auditorium for a quick dekko. the less privileged was evident in many ways. On Ultimately the proselytisation took place in the case of World Disability Day, Tarang – a cultural initiative some for the good of all concerned. exclusively for persons with special needs – was launched. Elsewhere, the students of Kaladisha That the scope of the Chennai Season could be further enlarged should engage the attention of the cultural Dance School donated two lakh rupees to the MMT departments of State and Central ministries, large Paediatric Oncology Centre at the Cancer Institute. megacorps, banks and even international foundations. The A short parallel music festival for the differently-abled reasons are many and merit serious consideration. The was also organised; on another platform, proceeds from global aspect could be further substantiated by bringing a series of concerts were passed on to an old age home in international artists of repute in Western classical for their upkeep. Yet another laudable gesture that music, opera and theatre. Enormous funding would be moved the hearts of the rasikas was bringing in senior required for such steps to be initiated. Fusion music has citizens of a home for the aged to a concert to enable already set in and fans have been treated to various forms them to get a feel of the music festival. of ensembles under the expert baton of such stalwarts The increased concern to spread the cheer of the as Guru Karaikudi Mani, T.V. Gopalakrishnan and Chennai season across all sections of society was indeed Ghatam Karthick. a welcome trend and needs to be applauded. Yet another area that needs to be explored is the question (The author is a rasika and former Vice-president [Advertisement], of bringing in more participation from top-drawer The Hindu)
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