The Problem of Plenty

[Sivaramakrishnan]

If you're a carnatic music enthusiast and in Chennai during December Music season, you'll be at a loss to plan as to which concert to attend.
However if you decide to cover a lead artist just once during the period, may be you can do justice to your plans and make Sabha hopping wise.
If you are determined to listen to select accompanists too, you must be prepared to do certain compromise in the venue, lead artist, peer pressure etc.

All said and done the Musicarnival is worth an indulgence for any music buff!!

[SrinathK]

If you have a 2 wheeler or use the map up there in the announcement, you'll see all the venues are actually quite close to each other for the most part - and Mylai and nearby have no dearth of great places to eat - just that they're all getting costlier by the day. Now-a-days, so many calendars are there that will give you the schedule very conveniently. And we have concerts from like early morning till night. All said and done, we have no dearth of seats in the halls either, except on Sunday for a few artistes. And a lot of free concerts.

Music of madras website says that a grand total of 75 documented concerts happened yesterday alone. While the sponsorship and venues are now at an all time high, this also means that the crowd gets spread very thin across the venues. In virtually all the sabhas except on weekends, most of the seats are barely half full. There are not really that many people out there as an audience. But there is also lot of proactive effort and new talent coming in, and opportunities are opening up.

Unfortunately most of our gen only manages to get home well after the last concert has concluded on weekdays - the work culture has become work every microsecond till layoffs or death, whichever is sooner, so that they can replace you with the next victim for slaughter, to what ultimate end only God knows - probably to support the hospital industry. Even basic needs like food, air, water and sleep are luxuries these days where you have 10000 different types of T shirts on Myntra to choose from. Maybe it is all a grand plan to reduce the world population in a few generations....

The age demographic in nearly all sabhas is either old or very old with a few youngsters on half yearly leave and practically nobody in between. I suppose this has been a perennial problem all last century and still here we are. But with so many free concerts, we need to be more proactive.

These are good times.

[Sivaramakrishnan]

Though I welcome the idea of chasing the bounty in a two wheeler this mostly ends up listening to recitals in parts.

[rajeshnat]

Yesterday I attended mavelikkara subramaniam , without the problem of plenty I would have not got his concert which i attended for the very first time. The bigger problem is not Problem of Plenty but the Problem of Spread . For example why there is no concert in Hamsadhwani Adayar right now , it is even better to reach Adayar then mylapore and mambalam on a weekday due to traffic snarls if in case you are travelling from coastal south part of chennai on a weekday. Carnatica Thiruvanmiyur is quite a blessing but most of their evening II is for dramas.

Few sabhas like Karthik Fine Arts or BVB tried few years back where they moved one third of their concerts away from mylapore to Annanagar . I did go once for half a concert pretty low to medium crowd in annanagar ,then they pullled out and moved it back to Mylapore. There was some organization that conducted in Arumbakkam , DG Vaishnava College once that also did not sustain.

Watch out for Dec 25, there will be an academy,ngs , Maris Mela in a hotel opposite Academy and few years back there was even a new woodlands valayapatti . Incidentally if you are in BVB first floor when the door is opened you can even hear BVB Main in one ear and BVB Mini in another ear. For supposition sake if BVB main is on with kalyani , BVB Mini is in parallel having mohanam then you as a rasika can customize and create your own mohanakalyani

Replenishment of artists is rapid , replenishment of rasikas in age is not great, tv is the reason there . But the worse thing is replenishment of sabha patrons . I am talking about folks like say vanimahal J Krishnamachary , parthasarathy sabha Krishnamurthy etal they are not young. To an extent we have bit relatively young mudhra and radha bhaskar to really do a great job.

The whole season is hinging first on the core sabha patrons exuberance and then the halls and then the artists, ofcourse few patrons like Nalli are way too important.

This year in Jan I even saw some concerts in Royapuram for the first time, a different geography spread that is great. Growing rasikas and ecosystem needs tremendous perseverance from new gen of sabha patrons, in 10 years time with metro kicking in , the commute will be possible even if late and excess autofares can be avoided.

[Sivaramakrishnan]

That's great, Rajesh. Pl post a review of Mavelikara Subramaniam's concert.

I couldn't make it though I very much wished to attend the same.

[rbharath]

BVB still runs their Kilpauk festival.
its news to me that KFA have stopped their Anna nagar festival.
The Rama Bhakta Samaj runs its festival in KK Nagar/Virugambakkam
Perambur Sangeetha Sabha has a festival
Chromepet has a good measure of progroams round the year.
TMK sings at Olcott kuppam, vysarpadi and all.
There is thiruvanmiyur asthika samajam. a place you must go for the pattu kutcheri and the pechu kutcheri of Sri Narasimhan.

Tamil Isai Sangam. such an august place with an imposing auditorium. i wish i could hear more there.

if you are willing to explore, then there are options everywhere.

further, there are many small size organizations which have programs. you must know them by fliers or word-of-mouth. an ad in a paper is not affordable to them.

[rajeshnat]

BVB still runs their Kilpauk festival.
its news to me that KFA have stopped their Anna nagar festival.

further, there are many small size organizations which have programs. you must know them by fliers or word-of-mouth. an ad in a paper is not affordable to them.

bvb once put in kilpauk in that rajaji vidyashram school which has lovely auditorium. i donot think there was ever a festival in kilpauk unless,u educate me bharath as to when it happened. May be I was outside of chennai then in the last few years.

All keezhpakkam madness is restricted to mylapore ,mambalam and alwarpet

Fliers or word of mouth that does,not have The Hindu announcement share it in
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28532

[rbharath]

I said BVB puts concerts in their Kilpauk premises. I dont remember when it started. Even this month, there are some programs at Rajaji Vidhyashram.