Conserving music; onus on exclusive organisations

Journalist N Murali launches TAG Listening Archives in city

Journalist N Murali on Thursday said that the onus of conserving music is on the organisations wedded to the cause.

Participating at the launch of TAG Digital Listening Archives at Ganabharathi Veene Seshanna Bhavan in the city, Murali also the president of Madras Music Academy (MMA), Chennai said ‘after Maharaja’s who patronised music, the mantle is on the organisations like Ganabharathi and others to take forward the great tradition of music.’

Murali said that, with the advent of technology, the connoisseurs who cannot watch live concerts will have the privilege of listening to great musicians.

The place of Mysore that is known for all time greats like Veene Seshanna, Vasudevacharya and Sadashivarao is now home to digital archives of 1,000 hours of live music. The State is also known for Karnatak music, hailed Murali.

Saga

R T Chari, the member of executive committee of MMA and also the brain behind the digital archives recalled the journey. It was after his retirement from service 30 years ago, his tryst with music began listening to Karnatak music.

Since then he also began to appreciate the very style of music. When he approached Murali , the latter was happy to spare a huge facility on the premises of the academy for establishing the archives, a touch screen system, that became a reality in a span of six months. Since then there was no looking back.

Starting from MMA, later at Gayana Samaja, Bangalore and South India Association Singapore, now Ganabharati is equipped with digital archives.

The archives having 1,000 hours of music has the capacity to store 10,000 hours of music in the coming days.

Journalist Krishna Vattam was happy to note that there has been significant changes in technology. He aslo recalled how he could forget the pain he was suffering due to an ailment, listening to soothing music.

The website of Ganabharathi was also dedicated.

Secretary of MMA Pappu Venugopala Rao, President of Ganabharati C G Narasimhan and others were present.