Cleveland Sustaining Sampradhaya 2010

[musicmysoul]

It is a great effort by Aradhana committee to arrange such a program for kids where they get to learn songs from highly reputed vidwans through skype.
Please share your opinion and critics about this year Sampradhaya program?

[musicmysoul]

Got an opportunity to watch the rehearsals of the GNB program. I feel pity for the kids and parents who had high hopes thinking that they will treated equally in this program. Especially the Manodharma part and the distribution of the instrument usage in the manodharma part was completely offset. Some of them were given chances because they are learning from great vidwans from india or known to the organizers? I wonder whether any parent of the kids who participated in this program noticed this and had the guts to convey their feedback to Mr. Sundaram

[music_is_life]

I was at this concert and I was quite impressed by the way it was presented. One has to look at this whole concept at a much higher level as envisioned by our beloved Mr. Sundaram. This is an exposure to the kids to consider this art seriously for those interested to pursue, provide an infrastructure to continuously learn and improve and above all create a network of like-minded kids. This is not about who gets to sing manodharma more etc and I don't think Mr. Sundaram has any role in deciding these small things.

[sampradayarasika]

Sampradaya has been completely taken over by Jayalakshmi Sekar. Unless Sundaram gets rid of her, it will continue to go down in the drain. She recieves personal gifts that are expensive, students to tutor with her and other kickbacks. It is so obvious now that she openly received gifts from St Lious parent in the main class auditorium.Therefore, it is a sweet deal for her to give up. Other teachers who taught from India sit in the comfort inn lobby and say Where are they having the reharsal? We want to go but Jaya does not tell us. Tiruvarur Vaidynathan, Charumati, Shashi Kiran told Jaya to let them be a part and take care, but she does not allow them.So as we saw in both streams, ONLY those children that take private lessons from her get showcased during the program. The children do not know any alapana, swaram. They were given phrases to learn and repeat. Even that they could not do. There was no concept of sruti seen anywhere. When asked Sundaram said you cannot find someone else who is free even during the peak season in Dec that can write notations and send. So we have to use who is available. Things have gotten so bad that she uses Sundaram's name and openly lies. She says Sundaram tells who sits where. He tells who sings what. He tells what songs will be added or deleted.If Sundaram gets rid of her and let's a senior artist lead the program, there is hope. Otherwise, Sampradaya will not even reach Jaya's caliber!

[cmpassion]

The quality of the program this year (I saw only the GNB one) was markedly poorer than last year's.
While it is admirable that the kids have a chance to learn from great artists, it does not mean all the participating kids are at the stage to render alapana/swarams/niraval.

Some of the kids who sang ragam and swaram were so off-key and lacked confidence. Junior kids can just sing the krithis and only a handful of senior kids need sing manodharma. (I don't mean senior by age, but by musical maturity) Parents should be ok with this.

(Note - I don't have any of my kids participating and I don't know any of the organizers/teachers either!) However, I am not aware of any backstage vested interests, so cannot comment on them.

[Enraged]

Sampradaya has been completely taken over by Jayalakshmi Sekar.

Quite right. It is nauseating to see someone teaching so many children Carnatic music.

Unless Sundaram gets rid of her, it will continue to go down in the drain.

The general opinion seems to be that the program is already in the drain, why bother retrieving it? Besides, the cost of a hitman to "get rid of her" is prohibitively high.

She recieves personal gifts that are expensive, students to tutor with her and other kickbacks. It is so obvious now that she openly received gifts from St Lious parent in the main class auditorium.Therefore, it is a sweet deal for her to give up.

It is truly a terrible thing when people choose non-verbal expressions of gratitude. Especially in public! Who do these people think they are? They are bribing a teacher to teach!

Other teachers who taught from India sit in the comfort inn lobby and say Where are they having the reharsal? We want to go but Jaya does not tell us. Tiruvarur Vaidynathan, Charumati, Shashi Kiran told Jaya to let them be a part and take care, but she does not allow them.So as we saw in both streams, ONLY those children that take private lessons from her get showcased during the program.

It must be frustrating for these artists to only be able to communicate to their own students through Jaya Sekhar. I have personally been in situations where there was no way to find out from students where they will be practicing. They have a cult of secrecy about them that prevents them from talking about Sustaining Sampradaya until the second they step on stage. I have also personally seen situations where Jaya Sekhar has not allowed these artists to teach the students by physically assaulting them. While I don't know which children took private lessons from Jaya Sekhar, I agree that implicit favoritism was apparent just by attending the concert.

The children do not know any alapana, swaram. They were given phrases to learn and repeat. Even that they could not do. There was no concept of sruti seen anywhere.

In fact, there was no concept of Carnatic music. We should tell these kids to just give up and go become mechanics. Especially because the concert was attended only by the relatives of the children and no-one else will care to listen to them.

When asked Sundaram said you cannot find someone else who is free even during the peak season in Dec that can write notations and send. So we have to use who is available.

That is why the whole Aradhana is a farce - they only invite whoever is available. They don't put any thought into the annual festival. They simply ignore great artists and encourage second-tier artists to teach second-tier children. They should stop conducting the Aradhana.

Things have gotten so bad that she uses Sundaram's name and openly lies. She says Sundaram tells who sits where. He tells who sings what. He tells what songs will be added or deleted.If Sundaram gets rid of her and let's a senior artist lead the program, there is hope. Otherwise, Sampradaya will not even reach Jaya's caliber!

I was especially enraged when Jaya Sekhar told me that Sundaram told her to spread the message that the weather would not be warm on Monday. It was obviously a lie - the weather was perfect! It is quite obvious that Sundaram, who spends so little time developing the theme of the concert and coordinating lessons, would spend even less time discussing the concert song list. Why should he care?

[mohan]

I find it odd that members like musicmysoul and enraged only come to this forum to post negative or sarcastic comments about the Cleveland Aradhana. If they had a real interest in Carnatic music, they would move beyond such competitions and contribute to the wider music community with their insight into other aspects of music.

[musicmysoul]

Mohan did not understand my intension here. I have full regards and respect to the music. It is very sad to see how it is exploited and misused the SS program by the coaches and I did not mean the Cleveland Aradhana as a whole. Carnatic Music has become popular in North America because of Cleveland Aradhana committee.

[VK RAMAN]

enraged - too much and personal attack......silly

[Enraged]

May I point out that I have never posted anything negative about the Aradhana? My sarcasm is reserved only to point out foolish comments made by people like sampradayarasika and elevate them to the next level of absurdity.

[natakapriya]

I attended this for the first time (the first GNB program) and must admit, was largely disappointed with the quality. The idea is sustaining sampradhaya is good, but I think it needs to followed through differently. The manodharmam portions were largely unnatural but for select children, and felt unnecessary. I don't mean this as an attack, just how I felt.

[rrao13]

Note: I am parent of a child who has participated in THREE sustaining Samapradaya Programs ; so my opinion is highly biased !

Here are my two bits on the Sampradaya program. As a parent obviously I had to decide whether forking out $1500 is worth it or not. At the end of each Sampradaya program I came back with mostly positive thoughts and I will continue to support the program. The only time I will stop sending my child is if the school work becomes overwhelming - which generally happens in the Sophomore and Junior High school years. Even then I will leave the decision to the child if s/he can cope or not.

I think the children had a good time. They networked, they had fun and a bunch of them interacted with leading performers. Parents had fun too and it was very gratifying to see some major artists attending the program.I wanted my child to have the exposure to some good teaching and a great atmosphere and getting it outside of Chennai is a God sent opportunity for us.

As far as Ms. Jayalakshmi is concerned , she is a powerhouse and worked tirelessly. I dont believe giving gifts is wrong because it is Guru Dakshina which our shastras recommend and the children and parents owe her (Cleveland organizers, as well) a monumental debt. I dont think she needs our money or gifts because I believe she lives abroad and her husband/family is well off. When I asked her what drives her to work some 14 or 16 hours a day she told me: Music, Kids, VVSundaram. I believe her because she said it with conviction.

I believe that the organizers of Cleveland are doing a phenomenal job and while it is OK to give them important inputs, feedback etc., I think it would be prudent not to cast aspersions ... as the Native American Indians say, at least dont do it until you walk awhile in their shoes. At the end of the day, they have the best feeling in the world that they have accomplished something, and they have touched the lives of many a child/CM fan and most important, they have offered something useful to the Supreme Lord Shri Hari. Shri Krishnarpanamasthu.

[harimau]

It is so nice to see people beating up on little kids and women.

A great show of character!

Keep it up!

[VK RAMAN]

I join hands with harimau

[harimau]

Sampradaya has been completely taken over by Jayalakshmi Sekar. Unless Sundaram gets rid of her, it will continue to go down in the drain. She recieves personal gifts that are expensive, students to tutor with her and other kickbacks. It is so obvious now that she openly received gifts from St Lious parent in the main class auditorium.Therefore, it is a sweet deal for her to give up. Other teachers who taught from India sit in the comfort inn lobby and say Where are they having the reharsal? We want to go but Jaya does not tell us. Tiruvarur Vaidynathan, Charumati, Shashi Kiran told Jaya to let them be a part and take care, but she does not allow them.

When you lie, make sure there is no evidence to prove you are a liar.

http://picasaweb.google.com/nalwar/Clev ... 7884753058

Charumathi Ramachandran is sitting in GNB Group practice.

All other photos show that practices were held mostly in public locations.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

[sampradayarasika]

Pictures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9 were on the first day of reharsal in the comfort inn ball room. These are the teachers that requested to also be there for the rest of the practices. Jaya did not inform them where they were practicing.

Charumati said that the children should not sing vidajalanura, nenarunchinanu. All of a sudden on stage, the children were asked to sing. This was later discovered that it was a back door deal with Jaya.

Most of the pictures here are from abhi alwar, the child that particiapted in swati group.

Vaidi said let the children attend some concerts. We will have them practice later. But, Jaya would not listen. Observe the pcitures again to see only Jaya with the kids dressed informally for practice.

Bottom line - Either Jaya learn to be a part of the team and let other teachers also know the schedule for practice and involve them. Take collective opinion. Or leave the program.

I am told that last year also there was a fight between Murali and Jaya for the same reason.
This year Vasudha, Thiagu are no where to be seen in GNB reharsal.
Jaya Santhanam is seen once on the thursday in comfort inn ball room and that's it!

See pictures 33, 35 and 65 - ONLY Jaya is there. If she tells other teachers, they will also come by and guide. But Jaya does not tell them.

A sampradaya that was envisioned very nicely by the founders as sustaining samparadaya, is now being said "the children gave money. Regardless of how they sing, they are being allowed".

Committee, wake up and get it back to what you envisioned.

[musicrasikai]

Hats off to the Kids who participated in this program and rendering the compositions in a well mannered and structured way.
I was there in the Cleveland Aradhana and also was staying in Comfort Inn and watching all the rehearsals. It was a wonderful concept of bringing in North American Kids to the world of Carnatic Music and there is no doubt that Cleveland Aradhana is doing a great job. But we should note that in particular to SS 2010 program, I felt that all parents paid a huge fee and came to participate, thinking that this is an "equal opportunity' program. I am sad to notice that during the rehearsals and in the presentation, I did not see that was happening. It was dominated by the coaches and leaders of that program to give opportunities to kids, who has no 'sruthi, laya and bhavam' and were repeatedly given chances to train during the rehearsals, and ignored other good kids. It was very obvious that money, power plays a big role in this event. I am very pity to understand as why introduce 'dicreminations|partitions' among the kids who has no knowledge of these in the society they grow. This is our way of handling things and can never change by writing these in forums, but they got to realize on their own. Parents have to learn as how to make the organizers (SS trainers) happy and butter them to get opportunities and Kids have to learn as how to PR with them to get chances. Overall the kids learnt the art from the good artists. Poor Thyagaraja, He composed these songs out of bhakthi and these artists try to make worldly wealth out of it. The purpose of this writing is to get equal opportunity for future participants in this program.
The kids have worked so hard and presented the songs very well, but there is a big screw up in the manodharma part. The program is funded by 30 parents’ of the Kids who participated in this, is worth $45,000.00 and this should be a “equal opportunity” program. It is not difficult to train the kids for the manodharma and make all of them play a role, as all the Kids were selected and filtered by the selection committee who is capable of giving a solo part for few minutes. If they are trained for the composition, they may as well get trained in manodharma part, which is totally lacking and given grievances to the poor parents, whose kids did not have a chance to demonstrate that capacity.

[harimau]

Pictures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9 were on the first day of reharsal in the comfort inn ball room. These are the teachers that requested to also be there for the rest of the practices. Jaya did not inform them where they were practicing......

See pictures 33, 35 and 65 - ONLY Jaya is there. If she tells other teachers, they will also come by and guide. But Jaya does not tell them.

Nearly 30 kids in each of the GNB and Swathi Thirunal concerts. That means 30 kids were told where the practice was being held.

In the photos, you see also the kids parents. That means 90 persons knew where practice was being held. But somehow Charumathi, Thiagarajan, Vasudha and Tiruvarur Vaidyanathan didnt know! All 90 persons (in the case of each of two concerts) were sworn to absolute secrecy that even the CIA cannot achieve!

In photo 36, we have Radha Viswanathan in a wheelchair and the children doing namaskaram to her. But people with two perfectly good legs cannot walk around, hear where the music is coming from, and see what is going on.

Nice story!

Any more conspiracy theories?

[srkris]

The topic has been locked to prevent disgruntled parents from creating fake IDs on the forum by pretending to be neutral observers to throw dirt on a reputed organization.

No one needs education here, and if the program really is so bad, it cannot sustain itself, much less sustain sampradaya.