Editorial
CARNATICA TURNS TWO!
Carnatica is two years old! It seems like only yesterday Shashikiran and Sowmya were discussing their vision for this site with me. The initial days of slogging to put together at least 200 pages of material, the high-profile launch, settling into the daily updates, the recognition we received for quality within 9 months of our launch from none less than Britannica and so on were the hallmarks of our first year! But have we achieved in the last year?
Well, the day after we celebrated our first anniversary, the world changed and along with it, everyone's lives. It was September 11, 2001. Ever since, the world has been facing a serious economic crisis, particularly in the field of computers. If the first year involved a lot of dedication and constant hard work on our part, the second year has required us to put in at least five times that effort, to not just keep afloat but also to live up to the mounting expectations from the Carnatic public. It is indeed a matter of pride for us that we have not only done both successfully, but also thrived! Let me quickly go over the high-points of our second year of existence.
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September 10, 2001: Celebration of our first anniversary at Raga Sudha Hall, Chennai. Unique musical pattimanram (debate) on "Technology - A boon or bane in Traditional Carnatic Music". Speakers included traditionalists like vocalist V Subramaniam, S V Krishnan (Naada Inbam) and people who are contributing to the technological side like Poorna Siva (Carnaticmusic.com) and V Sriram (Sangeetham.com). This was moderated by Dr. V V Srivatsa and Narada Gana Sabha's President, R Krishnaswamy. Following this there was a thematic concert by vocalists Vasundhara Rajagopal and Lakshmi Rangarajan. Carnatica also released a CD by the former on Raga Devagandhari, the first of its kind, based on our patented Raganubhava theme.
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September 26, 2001, Vijayadasami Day saw the launch of our Global Mobile Gurukulam. This has since grown to gigantic proportions with over 200 students now training under S Sowmya, K N Shashikiran, Chitravina Ganesh and other reputed teachers. The students are not only a major part of every one of Carnatica's activities, but have also begun to bring laurels to the organisation.
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September 2001 was memorable for another reason. That was when Carnatica launched yet another unique concept, the Parichaya scheme, which has changed our outlook on school education. First launched in Coimbatore, the Parichaya scheme has basically been to introduce Carnatic music as part of the school curriculum.
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October 2001: In association with Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Carnatica released a CD-ROM titled "A Pilgrimage to Holy Sabarimala". We also released 'Sai Kirtananjali', an album of Sai bhajans rendered by S Sowmya for Sankara Nethralaya.
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December 2001 saw the release of several cassettes under Carnatica's label such as the "Carnatic Pep Album", which is an intelligent fusion of Carnatic and Western music, Sowmya's Mylapore Fine Arts concert live, a live vocal concert of Chitravina N Ravikiran, a live concert of Malladi brothers, two live concerts of K N Shashikiran, and "The Awakening", a vocal album of Ranjani and Gayatri.
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Our Music festival coverage in December 2001 brought in a whole different perspective to music reviewing.
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March 17, 2002: A programme titled "Carnatic based film songs" in association with Lakshman Sruti and involving well-known names such as Kunnakkudi Vaidyanathan, Kadri Gopalnath, Nityasree Mahadevan etc. made waves in Chennai. Several children from different music organisations also rendered beautifully various classical based cine songs.
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April 12, 2002: Carnatica's Complete Interactive Solutions for International Music, Dance and Yoga as well as India's Cosmic Energy Therapy Centre were launched. Carnatica's Kids Club was also inaugurated simultaneously.
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May 17, 2002: A first-of-its-kind summer camp was organised at Ooty for the Carnatica family. The camp included sessions and courses on voice culture, bhajans, devotional music, rare Carnatic masterpieces and yoga among other subjects.
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June 1, 2002: Following the tremendous success of the summer camp at Ooty, two more camps were organised at the Carnatica premises in T Nagar and Adyar. These sessions included a course on Japanese music, as also lecture-demonstrations by leading artistes.
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June 23, 2002: In association with the Krishnamurti Foundation of India, Carnatica celebrated World Music Day. The event had presentations by Dr. V V Srivatsa, V Sriram and Dr. S Sunder. A special concert on the multi-faceted aspects of Carnatic music was presented by S Sowmya.
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June 2002: Carnatica Cultural Child Care Centre was launched at Chennai. It is like a day-care centre for children, but with a difference. The children under our wing will get exposure to music, bhajans, yoga, dance, Harikatha and other aspects that are unique to Indian culture right from their most impressionable age.
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July 3, 2002: We celebrated MLV Day in association with Narada Gana Sabha. The highlight of this was the unique audio-visual presentation on the music and life of the late legend M L Vasantakumari.
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August 6, 2002: The pitamaha of Carnatic music, Sri. Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer's 95th birthday was celebrated on a grand scale in association with Sri Krishna Sweets. A prayer session which included distribution of prasadam from about 120 temples in Tamilnadu was organised.
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August 13, 2002: After a gap of quite a few months, the next session of Raganubhava on Raga Bhairavi took place at the Mylapore Fine Arts Club. The panel of experts comprised Prof. S R Janakiraman, Setalapati Balasubramanian, Dr. V V Srivatsa, Palghat Ramaprasad and Swarnarethas. Two new cassettes under Carnatica's label, namely Jagat Janani by S Sowmya and the Shining Pearls of Swati Tirunal by R Suryaprakash were also released on this occasion.
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August 15, 2002: This will definitely stand out as one of the red-letter days for Carnatica. The mega musical march that we undertook in Chennai to commemorate India's 55th Independence day and involving all the major music organisations, musicians, schools and colleges is still being talked about! Such was the response and success!
So many different things in such short a time! Well, it is because the ideas never seem to stop flowing from Shashikiran's head! He is always restless to do more and to do newer and newer things. And despite her busy concert career, Sowmya never fails to complement and support him. The staff of Carnatica have been kept on their toes, and have worked day and night on project after project with utmost sincerity and dedication.
All the above has been part of our offline activities. As far as the website goes, the homepage is once again wearing a new look. The e-commerce section is also being revamped for easier navigation. Since Carnatica has brought out many new products in recent times, we decided to split our products from the products of other companies (The Arcade). The Rasika Forum, to everyone's relief, has also been made faster and is once again back on its feet!
We are still maintaining the daily updates almost without fail. Every week, we try to give you at least one news feature including an interview, one or two solid articles on music, special articles for special occasions, photographs and other interesting features like stories for kids, Museum, Top 10, Brain Stimulators and so on. A recent feather in our cap has been the exclusive and detailed coverage of the Cleveland Tyagaraja Aradhana, one of the biggest festivals of Carnatic music. We thank Amitava Sarkar for this. We introduced a new section called Sangeeta Charcha a few weeks ago - the section deals with musical topics that have been debated over several decades and still continue to be debated over. The Composition Bank now has nearly 400 kritis, thanks to Dr. P P Narayanaswami's enthusiasm and untiring efforts. Since August, we introduced a new feature called "Composer of the Month". Through this, we are not only hoping to highlight in detail the composer's life and works but also provide the lyrics of at least 40 - 50 of his/her compositions.
Despite our continuous efforts, there remains a lot to be done such as providing notations for compositions, supplementing textual information with relevant audio links and so on. We hope to be able to work on each of these things one by one and make browsing through this site a more interesting and enriching experience for you. To this end, we also seek more active participation from your side.
I have started a new thread in the Rasika Forum for your feedback on what we have done so far and what we ought to be doing in future. We would really appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes and tell us what you think about the quality of appearance and the contents of this website.
Sincerely,
Kiranavali Vidyasankar
Posted on September 11, 2002
