A musical odyssey in Chennai

The world's largest festival of Carnatic music is on. And this time performances have moved to temples and heritage bungalows

It's the annual season of music and dance in Chennai. Margazhi Mahotsav, the world's largest festival of Carnatic music that goes on till January 15, has the city's auditoriums packed to capacity. The festival draws rasiks (aesthetes) from across the world, with a significant number of non-resident Indians and foreigners coming to the city to witness some of the finest concerts of Carnatic music.

This year round, there is a lot more on offer with traditional art forms like the Harikatha, a style of story-telling that explores religious and mythological themes, as well as Hindustani music being part of the festival. Some performances too have moved out of air-conditioned auditoriums to temples, heritage bungalows and parks. And instruments like nadaswaram have found space alongside the saxophone, veena, violin, mandolin and the guitar. Vocal concerts, however, continue to dominate the list. In all, 65 organisations and over 1,000 artists are performing this year at over 60 venues.

Through 'Urur Olcott Margazhi Vizha', an idea which aims to open art and artists to new audiences and different environments, vocalist T M Krishna is trying to take ragas to the kuppam (slums). Besides Carnatic vocal performances, which will also feature national award winning playback singer P Unnikrishnan, there will be recitals by violin-veena duo Kumaresh and Jayanthi Kumaresh, villu paattu (bow song), karakattam (water pot dance performed in praise of the rain goddess), kattaikkuttu (a rural theatre form performed traditionally only by men) and bharatanatyam by a group from Kalakshetra.

The Margazhi (Tamil month) festival began in 1927 as an event to commemorate the founding of The Music Academy. Over the years, other Carnatic sabhas (organisations that helps conduct concerts) have followed the tradition of holding their festivals in different parts of the city around the same time. The duration of the concerts has, however, shrunk to one or two hours from the four-hour-long performances that people sat through in the 1960s.

Traditionally, booklets, and later websites, helped people keep track of the concerts. But this year, an app called 'Music Season' has been developed to allow aesthetes to track the schedules of their favourite artistes.

Getting sponsorship for the events has been a bit of a worry, though. For the sabhas, 75-80 per cent of the revenue comes through sponsorships. While the leading sabhas, including The Music Academy, have reported a marginal increase in sponsorship, others say it is down by 25-30 per cent this time. N Murali, the president of The Music Academy, says they have witnessed a 5 per cent increase in sponsorship as compared to last year.

The Chennai music season is also a delightful time for foodies, with various food items, traditional and contemporary, available at the venues. Besides choosing from the wealth of concerts, the aficionados can walk down the traditional food streets in the sabha canteens or head to the food court. Over 250 stalls will be set up during the festival at various venues.

For details, visit http://www.indian-heritage.org/musicseason/sch.html