Well known Carnatic musician and social activist T.M. Krishna was invited by International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, to speak about the topic Privacy and Public Gaze — A Singer’s Reflection. According to Krishna, any musician who is alone in his practice room aims to be one with music. With no second person around, the musician is in a meditative mood. It is the private space of a musician. In contrast, during a public performance, the musician is surrounded by an audience who sometimes applaud at the wrong moment, which could be a disturbance to the musician’s privacy.
According to Krishna, the popularity of a musician does not necessarily lead to making of great music in a live concert. If a musician is playing to the gallery, the music produced in such a concert would never come close to being defined as creative music. This very question of giving preference to popularity of a musician made Krishna take a bold decision of refusing any concerts in the Chennai music season since December 2015. Krishna felt that the concerts were becoming more like a ritual of routine music, news reviews and recommendation opportunities. It was getting centered on so-called popular musicians, NRI students of senior musicians, ticketing module for entry and domination by a single community; keeping Carnatic music away from common people.
Krishna always felt that music was a great tool to spread awareness about burning issues like encroachment and environmental degradation of Ennore Creek in Chennai and lent voice for the cause by singing Chennai Poromboke Paadal. Krishna has been awarded The Ramon Magsaysay Award in the year 2016 in the ‘Emergent Leadership’ category for his effort of bringing social inclusiveness in culture. Towards these thoughts, Krishna initiated an art festival in Urur Olcott Kuppam fishing village to showcase classical art and fisher folk art forms on an equal footing. He has also performed along with the Jogappa transgender community artistes from North Karnataka. Krishna makes an interesting observation about the audience which attends concerts. Says Krishna, “Every person is individually aiming to get a sublime experience and the whole audience collectively also has the same purpose. Gospel music, Namasankeerthanam or Qawwali may be different forms of music, but the intention of their rendition is to attain the same soulful feeling. One has to understand that everyone’s goal is the same and it needs to be respected by one and all.”
