Madras Music Academy - Annual Concerts 2020

[samskriti]

Greetings everyone!

Hope all of you are safe and healthy.

The Madras Music Academy just released its schedule for its December Season Annual Concerts 2020, and this year in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be held digitally.

I would love to hear your thoughts regarding this (Schedule, Lineup, Possible Awardees and the use of a digital platform)

Please find below the schedule (from MMA's Facebook page) -

The Music Academy, Madras

94th Annual Concerts (Digital), 2020

All timings in IST

Thursday, 24th December

3.15 - 4.15 pm -
Aishwarya Shankar (Vocal)
Sindhu Suchetan (Violin)
D.V.Sivaraman (Mridangam)

4.30 - 5.30 pm

Sunil Gargyan (Vocal)
Madurai M.Vijayganesh (Violin)
Srivanchiam R.Sriram (Mridangam)

5.45 - 7.15 pm

Sembanarkoil S.R.G.S. Mohandoss & Party (Nadaswaram)

7.30 - 9.00 pm

Kunnakkudy M.Balamurali Krishna (Vocal)
B.U.Ganesh Prasad (Violin)
Trichy B.Harikumar (Mridangam)
B.Sree Sundarkumar (Kanjira)

Friday, December 25th

3.15- 4.15 pm
V.Venkatanagarajan (Vocal)
Sayee Rakshith (Violin)
T.Nikshith (Mridangam)

4.30 - 5.30 pm

R.Ashwath Narayanan (Vocal)
Parur M.S.Ananthakrishnan (Violin)
Chidambaram S.Balashankar (Mridangam)

5.45 - 7.15 pm

Ranjani & Gayatri (Vocal)
L.Ramakrishnan (Violin)
Manoj Siva (Mridangam)
Anirudh Athreya (Kanjira)

7.30 - 9.00 pm

Jayanthi Kumaresh (Veena)
K.U.Jayachandra Rao (Mridangam)
Trichy S.Krishnaswamy (Ghatam)

Saturday, December 26th

3.15 - 4.15 pm

Vishnudev Namboothiri (Vocal)
Sandeep Ramachandran (Violin)
B.S.Prashanth (Mridangam)

4.30 - 5.30 pm

J.B.Sruthi Sagar (Flute)
K.P.Nandini (Violin)
R.Akshay Ram (Mridangam)

5.45- 7.15 pm

Sangita Kalanidhi Dr.S.Sowmya (Vocal)
Embar S.Kannan (Violin)
Neyveli R Narayanan (Mridangam)
H.Prasanna (Ghatam)

7.30 - 9.00 pm

Sangita Kalanidhi Sanjay Subrahmanyan (Vocal)
S.Varadarajan (Violin)
Neyveli B.Venkatesh (Mridangam)
Bangalore B Rajasekhar (Moharsing)

Sunday, December 27th

3.15 - 4.15 pm

Vivek Sadasivam (Vocal)
V.Deepika (Violin)
Ambur S.Padmanabhan (Mridangam)

4.30 - 5.30 pm

Sriranjani Santhanagopalan (Vocal)
Chidambaram G.Badrinath (Violin)
Akshay Anand (Mridangam)

5.45 - 7.15 pm

Sikkil C.Gurucharan (Vocal)
H.N.Bhaskar (Violin)
Sangita Kalanidhi Umayalpuram K.Sivaraman (Mridangam)

7.30 - 9.00 pm

Lalgudi G.J.R.Krishnan & Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi (Violin Duet)
Anantha R.Krishnan (Mridangam)
V.Suresh (Ghatam)

Monday, 28th December

3.15-4.15 pm

Ramana Balachandran (Veena)
Kishore Ramesh (Mridangam)

4.30 - 5.30 pm

Vignesh Ishwar (Vocal)
B.Vittal Rangan (Violin)
K.Sai Giridhar (Mridangam)

5.45 - 7.15 pm

Sangita Kalanidhi Sudha Ragunathan (Vocal)
Charumathi Raghuraman (Violin)
Patri Satishkumar (Mriangam)
R.Raman (Moharsing)

7.30 - 9.00 pm

Sumithra Vasudev (Vocal)
Dr.M.Narmadha (Violin)
B.Ganapathyraman (Mridangam)
Papanasam S.Sethuraman (Kanjira)

Tuesday, 29th December

4.30 - 5.30 pm

Aishwarya Vidhya Raghunath (Vocal)
M.Vijay (Violin)
K.H.Vineeth (Mridangam)

5.45 - 7.15 pm

Visakha Hari (Harikatha)
B.Anantha Krishnan (Violin)
B.Arjun Ganesh (Mridangam)
Trichy Dr.K.Murali (Ghatam)

7.30 - 9.00 pm

Ramakrishnan Murthy (Vocal)
R.K.Shriramkumar (Violin)
Sumesh S.Narayan (Mridangam)
K.V.Gopalakrishnan (Kanjira)

Wednesday, 30th December

4.30 - 5.30 pm

N.Ananthanarayanan (Veena)
Mandapaka Nagalakshmi (Mridangam)

5.45 - 7.15 pm

Sangita Kalanidhi A.Kanyakumari (Violin)
K.V.Prasad (Mridangam)
Bhagyalakshmi M.Krishna (Moharsing)

7.30 - 9.00 pm

K.Bharat Sundar (Vocal)
R.Raghul (Violin)
B.Sivaraman (Mridangam)
S.V.Ramani (Ghatam)

Thursday, 31st December

5.45 -7.15 pm

K.Gayatri (Vocal)
M.Rajeev (Violin)
Poongulam Subramaniam (Mridangam)

[rajeshnat]

This is a second round cherry pick after the usual first round of cherry picking . One can sense how the core of core academy nexus with musicians. The most notable omission is Abhishek Raghuram . Abhishek should have been in instead of Sumitra Vasudev(best choice to be out), K gayathri, Bharath Sundar, KBMK, Gurucharan , RKM

Or

Better yet Abhishek should have been in instead of earliest vocalist sangeetha kalanidhi sudha raghunathan, after all is abhishek not the future like say Gurucharan, K Gayathri, KBMK, or bit more younger RKM, Bharathsundar.

Or

May be just abhishek did not take his offered concert , in that case my above post is not right.

Abhishek would have sung a 90 mins pallavi that would have been a sixer. Any way concert is just 90 mins. Looks like Music Academy is doing the right thing with minimal lights on.

The greatest living legend Sangita Kalanidhi Umayalpuram K.Sivaraman (Mridangam) playing post this difficult covina must be the highlight of this music starved year. UKS mama is 85 this Dec 2020.

[Nick H]

Abhishek should have been in instead of Sumitra Vasudev(best choice to be out)

Sacrilege! Excuse me, but some of us want to listen to music.

[Sivaramakrishnan]

With proliferation of music events in the social media, the Dec season concert schedules may not be a matter of concern
for the rasikas at least in the home country. The facebook livestreams of carnatic music by the known and lesser known artists have virtually taken over the lockdown days and people seem to be quite happy with it. Lot of talented youngsters have got opportunities to sing before the carnatic world. Despite the minuses ( the financial strain among professional artists being the major one) Indian classical music (including the Hindustani counterpart)has seen a virtual globalisation.

We can console ourselves that it is only a temporary setback and things would return to the original glory shortly but reaching rasikas in different modules...

[thanjavooran]

Abhishek should have been in instead of Sumitra Vasudev(best choice to be out)

Sacrilege! Excuse me, but some of us want to listen to music.

Not worth for any discussions further.
Thanjavooran
02 09 2020

[devan]

if Sivaraman can play at 85 why not Sudha? He could have given the chance to a youngster. GREEDY.

[rupavathi]

Haha, be glad he didn't commandeer two slots and a double lec-dem spot.

[hnbhagavan]

Devan,

UMayalapuram Sivaraman playing is a blessing to all youngsters.He encourages by playing along side upcoming artists.
Very uncharitable of you to say the least for such remarks.

[hnbhagavan]

TN Krishnan,M Chandrasekharan ,Trich Sankaran ,TV gopalakrishnan are not in the list perhaps due to less number of days.

[Nick H]

Most of them are young-to-middle-age. The elders, many of whom would have been singing at 9.00am, are not there. I think this may be a matter of having regard to the greater health risks to elders (not withstanding the elder viwan discussed). Those who would by travelling from abroad, eg Trichy Sankaran, may not come to the city at all this year.

Not travelling from abroad might apply to a number of artists of all ages.

[sureshvv]

Will be nice if they do the lec-dems as a live webinar.

[hnbhagavan]

The number of days could have been increased to accommodate Abhishek Raghuram ,Vidya Kalyanaraman,Amrita Murali,Mysore Brothers.
Prize Winning need not be the criteria.

[rajeshnat]

The number of days could have been increased to accommodate Abhishek Raghuram

Even if there is a two day annual concert series with 2 slots in every evening , assuming one goes to the traditional nadaswaram , if music and crowd acceptance has to be the top most criteria atleast these 3 in any order have to be there . They are in any order 1. Sanjay Subrahmanyan 2.Ranjani and Gayatri and 3. Abhishek Raghuram.

Period.

[Nick H]

Sanjay is there. The other two are certainly crowd pullers.

We;ll have to see how it works out, but in this coming virtual season, I don't think it is going to matter who is included by any particular venue.