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Preserving traditional music
YOU CAN just drop in at Sampradaya, pay Rs. 5 and listen to old concerts of M.L. Vasanthakumari, Smt. M.S. Subbulakshmi or a rare song on Muruga by dancer Balasaraswathi. The best of traditional music of different schools are recorded on 3,000 hours of tape at the documentation centre for south Indian music traditions.
The two-decade-old institution also offers its research documents and records for an annual membership fee of Rs. 150 and a life membership of Rs. 2,000.
Founded by Ludwig Pesch and Michael Nixon, Sampradaya is today a store house of interviews and studies of different types of musical art forms, including tribal, temple, folk, Nadaswaram, Tavil, Oduvars, Kalakshepam, Harikatha - providing information on known and unknown singers, says Geetha Rajagopal, Director, Sampradaya.
"We have just started documenting records from the disciples of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, M.L. Vasanthakumari and T. Brinda," she says, adding that they are not just interviews but panel discussions among disciples. Interesting details about the personal life of the great music patron of the Gurukulam style of teaching is elicited during the discourses.
Ritha Rajan, executive committee member of Sampradaya, says the rare compositions of Varnams, Javalis and Padams and direct documentation of concerts will be of great help to the student doing research on music and musical forms.
Padma Viswanathan, granddaughter of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, says Sampradaya has 57 life members who are musicians, musicologists and NRIs. "While there are an average of four visitors daily, during the music season there are lots of students coming in. Sometimes there are many who come to Chennai for a week, stay in a hostel to hear music and refer the library at Sampradaya," she says.
There are archives of photos that are a century old.
Like any organisation that struggles to make ends meet, Sampradaya has its store of problems too.
In an appeal for funds that its office-bearers have addressed to the Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, the broad agenda of documenting the various traditions of South Indian music by the organisation has been laid down. The preservation of records by masters like `Tiger' Varadachariyar, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Ramnad Krishnan, G.N. Balasubramaniam and M.D. Ramanathan and lesser-known composer-musicians including Cuddalore Subramaniam call for high fidelity to the original sound. There is hence a need to acquire sophisticated recording equipment such as Revox and Tascam spool decks. "The archival material, presently stored in spools and cassettes, needs to be digitised and stored in compact discs," the representation pointed out.
Besides the need for a more spacious premises (it is now in a small rented place at 1, Musiri Subramaniam Road, Mylapore), there is a need to build a corpus fund to enable Sampradaya to continue the work.
"Because of the lack of funds, we are not able to progress further. There are around 500 rare recordings which we are not able to digitise," Ms. Geetha Rajagopal says.
By Akila Dinakar
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Life
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
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