Music Season 2013 has gone by, leaving behind pleasant memories, memorable music and several positives. It has been a great season for all stakeholders—sabhas, artists, sponsors and rasikas. Here is a look back at the highlights of the season from the perspective of each of the stakeholders and our take on what can be done to improve the season in the coming years.
Amongst the male artistes, Sanjay Subrahmanyan, Yesudas and Abhishek Raghuram recorded the maximum ticket sales this season. Sanjay fans had a new song or a new element to look forward to in each concert, and he did not let them down—even performing two concerts (one at the beginning and the other at the end of the festival) at Brahma Gana Sabha! Although not featured in the ticketed slots, T.M. Krishna drew huge crowds and continued to be a newsmaker.
Neyveli Santhanagopalan was as popular as ever, performing the maximum number of concerts. Sikkil Gurucharan and Saketharaman were the silent big gainers, maintaining their consistent high standards of performance. Ramakrishnan Murthy, who began to be talked about last season, further consolidated his position this year as the find of the season.
Bharat Sundar and Sandeep Narayan also had good runs, while young NRI Kamalakiran Vinjamuri is quickly turning into an artist to watch out for. Amongst the veterans, nonagenarian R.K. Shrikantan continued to awe people with his energy levels and his ability to produce stunning music on the concert stage. T.V. Sankaranarayanan’s fan base seems to have expanded; he received standing ovations for several of his concerts.
Amongst the vidushis, the Bombay brigade—Ranjani-Gayathri and Bombay Jayashree -drew overflowing crowds, along with the newly crowned Sangita Kalanidhi Sudha Raghunathan (who drew full houses despite having to cut down on some of her concerts), Nithyasree Mahadevan and the Priya sisters, Pantula Rama and Savita Narasimhan have grown into names to reckon with, despite not performing as many concerts as some star performers.
Gayathri Venkataraghavan proved her mettle with multiple consistent concerts. K. Gayathri was also spoken about this season and perceived slot promotions in many sabhas. Sriranjani Santhanagopalan made rapid strides, while NRI Kriti Bhat earned a good name for herself.
The season saw a few good innovative and thematic presentations as well. Malladi Brothers’ innovative concert on aarogyam and sangeetham for Jaya TV’s Margazhi Maha Utsavam was talked about widely, as were Vijay Siva’s and S. Sowmya’s at the same venue.
The Priya sisters made sure to include compositions of their guru Prof. T.R. Subramanyam and dedicated their concerts to him. The Lalgudi siblings played in memory of their father Lalgudi Jayaraman, while Dr Narmadha dedicated her performances to her father M.S. Gopalakrishnan.
Chitravina RaviÂkiran, Shashank and Kadri GopalÂnath delivered consistent performances. Prof. T.N. Krishnan performed around 8–10 memorable concerts. Anil Srinivasan collaborated with traditional Carnatic artists, delivering interesting presentations.
The crowds seemed to have improved marginally this season for instrumental performances, but there is definitely a long way to go.
Like every year, new sabhas and festivals mushroomed in the 2013 season as well.
Established sabhas invested heavily in new audio systems and equipment, a very welcome move. Going forward, investing in good sound engineers with a ear for the aesthetic will ensure that sounds levels do not cross the acceptable threshold. From stage backdrops to publicity methods, a lot of thought and effort went into the organisation of many of the popular festivals.
Margazhi Maha Utsavam continued to be a rage amongst rasikas, acting as the perfect curtain raiser to the season. In terms of extravagance, glitz and glamour and the sheer variety of events featured—including playback performances, Hindustani music, fusion presentations, dance performances, etc,—Chennaiyil Thiruvaiyaru was the clear winner. Sabhas in the outskirts and suburban areas drew crowds, irrespective of the popularity of the artist featured
Danseuse Revathy gives a splendid performance at the Kamakoti hall
One of the issues from this season that sabhas should address is the lack of crowds for artistes who have recently been promoted to the prime ticketed slots. As free concerts usually attract reasonable crowds, artists who have been promoted from free afternoon concerts to ticketed evening concerts will find that their audience has dwindled.
The problem is especially true of the front rows - sabhas give out front row passes to members and sponsors, many of whom do not turn up, leaving the front rows empty. Since these seats are reserved, organisers are not at liberty to sell them, thus leaving the seats perpetually empty for the non-star performers’ concerts! Should artists package their music better and ensure they become star performers?
Or should the rasikas motivate themselves to attend concerts of non-star performers as well? Or should sabhas not give out membership passes? The answer may be simpler than any of these—sabhas could leave some seats free on a first-come-first-served basis a few times for each newly promoted artiste, until the artists manage to draw crowds for themselves even in ticketed performances.
Another of the big positives this season was that sabhas made genuine efforts to improve the remuneration of artistes, at least by 30 per cent, although it is still lower than artistes would like it to be and much lower than the remuneration they receive outside Chennai.
A handful of sabhas in Chennai have their own auditoria, the rest have to hire halls on a temporary basis to conduct their festivals, and their costs include hall rent and maintenance, besides artist payment, marketing and publicity. While artistes’ remuneration expectations are reasonable, sabhas often struggle to recover even their basic expenses. This is especially true of the smaller sabhas as corporate houses and big sponsors are only interested in supporting high visibility events.
A workaround for this would be to calculate, with collective effort, the monetary outflow for the entire Chennai Music Season, market the season as one mega event (with government support if needed) rather than hundreds of sabhas conducting their own concerts, gather sponsors for the season as one entity rather than for individual sabhas and finally ensure that all sabhas and sponsors get their due. Only time will tell whether this will happen in the years to come.
One of the clear gainers this season was the caterers outside the popular concert venues. Irrespective of whether the concert halls were full, the canteens were always overflowing with people. The food was more affordable than the food served at many of the star hotels where NRI rasikas stay during the season, hence the huge draw. Gnanambika Caterers at Narada Gana Sabha won hands down in terms of popularity.
The rasika rampage at Jaya TV’s Margazhi Maha Utsavam continued this year. Parthasarathy Swami Sabha’s morning lectures were all keenly watched and reviewed. For comfort listening, however, it seemed that rasikas still preferred Music Academy and Narada Gana Sabha.
The audience in T. Nagar mostly distributed itself between Vani Mahal and Krishna Gana Sabha. It seemed this year that sabhas became more techno savvy with some of them like Kartik Fine Arts arranging for the concerts to be webstreamed. Overall, new technology was welcomed more openly then before and rasikas’ understanding seemÂed to have improved.
So, for the artistes, sabhas, sponsors and rasikas, Season 2013 has been a fantastic one! It has been a joyful music season and one that has left everyone energised, recharged and geared up for a whole new year! So until it’s season time again and time to analyse it all afresh, it’s adieu!
[K.N. Shashikiran is a popular Carnatic vocalist who performs as part of the Carnatica Brothers duo. He is the founder of Carnatica, an organisation that promotes Carnatic music worldwide, and is also a scholar, researcher, voice culture expert, guru and author. Nivedita Narayanan is a Carnatic vocalist and a disciple of K.N. Shashikiran. She is also a TV anchor and writer.]
