 Online edition of India's National Newspaper Saturday, Dec 13, 2008 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version |
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Tamil Nadu
RED-LETTER DAY: Fredrick Kaplan, acting U.S. Consul-General in Chennai, at The Music Academy-TAG Digital Listening Archives inaugurated in Chennai on Friday. N. Murali, Managing Director, The Hindu, and R.T. Chari, MD, Tag Corporation, are in the picture. CHENNAI: The button that invites you to ‘Click here to listen to a concert’ could have had the words ‘open sesame’ on it. For, once you touch it, it unveils a treasure trove for your aural delight. Sample this: a rare duet of Sanjay Subrahmanyam and P. Unnikrishnan or M.D. Ramanathan performing his own composition ‘Saagara Shayana …’ If that does not whet your appetite, how about Dandapani Desikar mulling over which raga would suit ‘Thunbam nergayil,’ the classic by poet Bharatidasan. To tempt you a little more pore over a rare gem of Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer practising at home or the last ‘kutcheri’ of Brinda and Mukta. Such nuggets are stored in a server that feeds ten touch screens of The Music Academy-TAG Digital Listening Archives that was inaugurated here on Friday. “Today is indeed a red letter day in the annals of this 80-year-old institution,” said N. Murali, Managing Director, The Hindu. It was the dream of every office-bearer of the Academy to digitise its collection and make it accessible to musicians and rasikas. The collection includes concerts performed at the Academy as well as material donated to it over the years. This became possible with the involvement of R.T. Chari, MD, Tag Corporation, “a passionate connoisseur of heritage and avid rasika and collector, whose private collection equals that of the Academy,” said Mr. Murali. Talking about the long journey towards forming his collection, Mr. Chari said: “Collectors of music are a peculiar lot. They form a closed circle and do not allow others to get in.” Over three decades he convinced various guardians to part with their gems and managed a collection of around 6,000 hours of music. “It was equally difficult to index all of it,” he said, a task in which his brother R.V. Gopalan helped. The Tag Corporation bore the cost of the equipment and facilities of the library. Fredrick Kaplan, acting U.S. Consul-General in Chennai, said that the world is poorer when great works of art disappear. Hence, we need to “ensure that this musical legacy that belongs to people all over the world lives on.” Mr. Murali urged connoisseurs to contribute their collections to the library. They would not be used for commercial purposes; people would only be allowed to listen and not download or take any part of the recordings, he said. The library is housed at the Academy. During this season, the collection will be available for people to experiment before it is opened in February with formal regulations, said Mr. Murali. One thousand hours of music are available.
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