From Cleveland, with bhavam
Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival has brought the young Indian Americans to be at the season.
The festival which is held at Cleveland around April every year had earlier promised that the winners of the music and dance dance competitions will be given an opportunity to perform in Madras during the season.
And here they are.
Sustaining Sampradayam, a concert by these young people will be held at the Music Academy on Jan, 2 at 6.30 pm. And on Jan. 3 at Thayaga Brahma Gana Sabha (Vani Mahal) at 10 am.
The winner of the Cleveland dance competition Ranjani Murthy will present a Bharatanatyam recital at Narada Gana Sabha on Jan. 3 at 6.30 pm
The Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival will honour the senior vocalist S. Rajam with the title Sangeetha Rathnakara. Ranganayaki Rajagopalan, senior veena artiste will receive the title Sangeetha Kala Sagaram and M. S. Anantharaman, well-known violinist will be conferred with the title Acharya Rathnakara.
For more details of the event contact 2446 5543. 2491 4103
Pattimanram to infuse debate, discussion
Rasika Fine Arts, in association with Jaigopal Garodia Hindu Vidyalaya M.H.S School, is now into its fourth year of conducting the annual music festival creating a space for the Mambalam residents.
To trigger debates and falicitate healthy exchage of views, Rasika ran an innovative idea- to conduct a pattimanram. Credit for this idea goes to Maharajapuram S.Srinivasan.
The topic chosen, “Does infusion of newness into our traditional arts contribute to the upliftment or downfall of these arts?”, was suggested by the mediator and judge of the debate, Dr.Va.Ve.Su, retired principal of Vivekananda College.
The team included six speakers, Kanchinathan, Mohana Sundaram, Satish, Raghunathan, Prema and Manikandan with the first three speaking for “upliftment” and the rest going against it. It was a matter of great honour that Pann Isai Vendar, P.B.Srinivas, should have graced the occasion with his presence.
Dr.Va.Ve.Su said that introducing new into the old by itself is a tradition. The reason for introducing newness is not because that these is no joy in the old but it is to enhance the joy deprived from tradition.
The arts scenario has witnessed changes in the following areas:
methodology of teaching - through the internet; structural aspect - new tamburas and veenas are made in such a way that chey can be transported safely; performace peripheires - the audio system introduced brings about uniform quality of listening experience irrespective of whether the rasika is seated in the front or at the back. This newness is required to spread the goodness of our arts far and wide. Since these changes are initiatives for preservatin and not for destruction the conclusion is that infusion of newness brings about upliftment and not downfall.
This judgement comes with a ryder that along with the infusion comes responsibility to ensure that his process doest not bring about erosion of the underpinned spirit.
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