Madras Music Academy

Madras Music Academy, or simply Music Academy, is one of the premier and early Music Academies in the South Indian city of Madras, now Chennai. It plays an important role in encouraging and promoting primarily the Carnatic Music south Indian art form.

History

In 1927, Indian National Congress held the All India Music Conference in Madras. At the end of the conference it was decided that an organisation be formed that helped the cause of music. The prime reason for this conference was E. Krishna Iyer who had played a vital role in reviving the south Indian dance art form - Bharatanatyam.

Lovers of music and other well wishers wanted to stimulate interest in Carnatic music in the South and develop a rich culture. The academy had sound planning from the start with an expert committee consisting of some of the leading musicians and scholars to advise the academy on all technical matters.

The Academy was formally inaugurated on the 18th of August, 1928 by C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, in the Y.M.I.A. Auditorium before a large and distinguished gathering.

Since then the academy has endeavoured to provide various avenues to further the advancement of the science and art of Indian music.

Annual music conferences are held every December to collect all information regarding music, maintain the library and publish a journal. They also help to bring to public notice aspiring musicians and scholars by conducting competitions and other presentations.

For a decade, E.Krishna Iyer worked as the Secretary of the Madras Music Academy. The first Music Festival was held in December, 1927 which is before the inauguration of the Music Academy. Since then, it had become a part of the Madras Music Academy's Activities to conduct several expositions and concerts on Carnatic Music every December. This later came to be popularly known as the "Margazhi Season" or is even referred to as the "Music Season" amongst Carnatic enthusiasts. This soon became the norm for all sabhas in Madras to conduct several concerts each day during the season. There were several sabhas before the formation of the Music Academy like the Parthasarathy Swami Sabha in Mylapore which was formed as early as 1900. However it was the Madras Music Academy that set the trend of conducting the music festival during December.

Dr. U. Rama Rao was the founder President of the Academy, there have been five others in that post, till the present President Sri T.T.Vasu. Before the present building (T.T.Krishnamachari Auditorium) was constructed the annual conferences, programmes where held in various locations around the city.

The building

During the first few years, the Academy conducted its activities provisionally in George Town and later moved to Mylapore. In 1955, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone for the music academy building that exists today on TTK Road in Mylapore. On December 20, 1962, Maharaja Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur, the then Governor of Madras.

There are two buildings for the Music Academy:

# The T.T. Krishnamachari Hall
# The Kasturi Srinivasan Hall

The T.T. Krishnamachari Hall is the first building that was built in 1955. It is after this building that the road on which it lies was named the "TTK Road". It has a seating capacity of 1600.

The Kasturi Srinivasan Hall was built in the year 1982. It houses a small auditorium for conferences and concerts, a library, a committee room and a recording and demonstration room. It was here that Tiruvavaduthurai Rajaratnam Pillai's tapes and audio CDs were produced. It also has a photo gallery named the "Vinyasa Art Gallery" which is used during the season to exhibit photos. Kasturi Srinivasan's nephew's son, N. Murali, the Joint Managing Director of The Hindu, is the present President of the Academy.

Awards, recognition and contributions

*Sangeetha Kalanidhi : The Music Academy, since 1929 has been recognising and rewarding people who contributed to the field of Carnatic music by honouring them with the title Sangeetha Kalanidhi. In 1968, M.S. Subbulakshmi was the first woman to receive the Sangeetha Kalanidhi award from Madras Music Academy.
*Sangeetha Kala Acharya : It was later in 1993 that the academy also started giving out the Sangeetha Kala Acharya title.
*Spirit of Youth-festival of Dance and Music : During the October of every year nearly 40 young artists are projected by the academy for their Classical Music and Dance talent.
*Special TTK Award
*Best Artiste Award
*Music Welfare
** R.R.Talent Promotion Scheme : Two talented artists are selected by the Academy and are sponsored for coaching under an eminent musician chosen by the academy. At the end of the training period the artists get to perform in the Academy.
** Teacher's College of Music is a school run by the academy for offering certified courses on Vocal, Violin and Mridangam.
*Books : The Academy conducts research on Music and publishes their findings. Some of the academy's publications:
** The Ragas of Sangita Saramrta, a book written by King Tulaja I.
** Lakshana Gitas
** Raga Lakshanas

Trivia

*M.S. Subbulakshmi gave her first official concert in the Music Academy
*The December Season of 2004 was "about" to see a dramatic change with the Music Academy not participating in the festival because of legal issues with Mr.T.T. Vasu and the other people who run the Academy. Thanks to the Madras High Court, the issue was quickly resolved and rasikas were able to enjoy the 2004 season.

Library

Music Academy received a donation of Rs. 1,00,000 from late Sri. S. Visvanathan in memory of the late Sri. K. R. Sundaram Iyer for the improvement of library activities. The library is now named as Sri K. R. Sundaram Iyer Memorial Library. It has rare books, manuscripts and tape recordings of the proceedings of the Expert Committee sessions. The students of the Teacher's College of Music, members, music students and research scholars. Books on both music and other general subjects donated by the families of late Prof. P. Sambamoorthy, Sangita Vidvan K. C. Thyagarajan, Dr. V. Raghavan, Mr. Venkatakrishnan, Dr. S. R. Janakiraman and other individuals.

Location

Next to Acropolis Building.

External links

* [http://www.musicacademymadras.in/ Music academy official website]
* [http://www.indian-heritage.org/musicseason/ma.htm Sabhas - Music Academy]
* [http://www.chennaionline.com/musicseason2k/sabhas/musicacademy.asp The Music Academy]
* [http://www.hindu.com/fr/2006/01/13/stories/2006011300290300.htm The Inauguration of the Music Academy building - Article from The Hindu]
* [http://www.hinduonnet.com/mp/2002/12/30/stories/2002123000080300.htm 75 years of dedication to Indian arts]
* [http://www.carnatica.co.uk - Music Academy]