Ninety nine years of Margazhi
Margazhi, with its cool dawns and resonant evenings, is beginning to transform the city into a living concert hall. Ragas and timeless compositions are passing through the walls of sabhas, echoing through the corridors, and down the roads. For generations, music and crowds during this season have spilled out of The Music Academy Madras too a space where tradition and creativity meet. The academy is known for nurturing legendary maestros, encouraging young prodigies, and preserving the rich legacy of Carnatic music. Standing just one year away from completing a glorious century, this years line-up combines pride and anticipation. Inaugurating the 99th Annual Conference and Concerts on Monday, was chief guest AR Rahman, along with the president and vice president of Music Academy N Murali and R Srinivasan respectively, singers Bombay Jayashri and TM Krishna, and violinist and Sangita Kalanidhi RK Shriramkumar. Before beginning his address, Rahman, fondly called the Mozart of Madras, glanced across the audience and took in the scene before him: a sea of seasoned faces, with barely a quarter of the gathering made up of the young. Pausing on this quiet contrast, he chose to address it. How do we get them (the youth) in? This has been my task for the past 10 years. I have been working on script ideas, how to make a movie in a raga, and all these crazy ideas which I never told anyone. How do we reinvent the experience of classical music? It cant be just stuck to Music Academy, or RR Academy or Vani Mahal. It has to go around the world and people need to experience this in a way where they get enthralled and immersed, he said. He observed that even in an age dominated by AI and social media, the depth and richness of human experience remain undeniably superior. It is this truth, he said, that gives the performing arts their enduring relevance. To keep traditions alive and vibrant, he stressed the need to reinvent how they are presented so as to draw new audiences, energise the cultural economy, attract tourists, and instil a renewed sense of pride in our heritage. Urging listeners to become ambassadors of the arts, he invited them to think beyond preservation and towards transcendence: how our traditions can travel, resonate, and flourish across the world. The creation and knowledge of music are one part, he noted, but presenting and marketing it in a way that the world can experience and enjoy is an equally important task. At the event, the academy along with the music maestro presented the Sangita Kalanidhi MS Subbulakshmi award to RK Shriramkumar. During his acceptance speech, he recalled that his very first opportunity to perform at the Music Academy was, quite literally, a borrowed one. Stepping in for an artist who could not turn up, he found himself performing with a borrowed instrument and even borrowed clothes. I thank the president and committee members for bestowing me with this prestigious honour. The morning lecture sessions this year are dedicated to Muthuswami Dikshitar. We have some fascinating lecture demonstrations lined up with several eminent musicians and scholars, promising information and learning, he concluded. The academy this year has opened concert and season ticket sales online, in addition to selling it off of the academys counter. President N Murali also announced that the auditorium is now equipped with a new world class audio and acoustic system that has enhanced the technology and listening experience, making the audio quality uniform across the space. Vice president Srinivasan delivered the vote of thanks.
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