Srishti’s Carnatica
Private Limited is a Chennai based company with its only
Directors as Mr. K.N.Shashikiran and Smt.
S.Sowmya (The two well-established young
innovative South Indian Classical music singers). The company, since its
inception has been specialising in bringing out technologically sophisticated
and superior products of Art and Culture. These products are aimed at putting
Indian Music on an international pedestal. These products have received an overwhelming
response from the public as very valuable from both educational and
entertaining point of view. All the three are the first of their kind in the
World of Music.
The Company has pioneered in not
only coming out with such technologically advanced products but has also set a
record as the first to introduce Carnatic Music in the Internet portals.
The Company also proposes to
document and preserve Indian music and Dance in the form of CDs, CD ROMs, DVDs,
Publications and manuscripts. The Company is currently involved in a World
Music CD ROM / DVD project.
The Company’s motto is to preserve
and propagate Indian Culture through the technologically most advanced media.
The products are unique, interactive and innovative and are targeted to attract
the children and youth to the traditional Indian culture using multimedia as
the main base.
The Directors have also started an
Archival centre, to document Indian music and dance known as Carnatica Archival
centre. This is a voluntary non- profit trust serving to preserve Indian art
and culture without time, linguistic or geographical barriers.
CARNATICA ARCHIVAL
CENTRE
Carnatica Archival Centre is a Trust, officially launched in July 1999. The Centre aims to preserve, promote and propagate Carnatic
Music globally.
The broad objectives of CAC are to expose, educate and enlighten
one to have a better insight into the aesthetics of Carnatic Music and to
perceive the subtle nuances through this innovative musical experience. This is
a sincere effort to make:
·
a layman – a great
Rasika
·
a music student – a
musician
·
a musician – a
musician’s musician
AIMS
·
To archive and
document Carnatic music compositions and the works of composers, musicians through
audio/video/books or other media for the benefit of the future generations and
to make them accessible to the general public, private or government
institutions and music students or practitioners throughout the world.
·
To organise
exhibitions, educational programmes, concerts, seminars, lec-dems and other
related activities.
·
To start a hi-tech
Library by the installation of Computers, Video and Audio projection systems
and other equipment both for storage and retrieval of recorded data relating to
Carnatic Music which would be made available to the Music lovers, students and
performers.
·
To associate in other
activities which would be directly or indirectly beneficial to the cause of
Carnatic music system, its practitioners and music lovers, currently and for
the posterity.
Music appreciation series
·
RAGANUBHAVA
(click
here for sample audio)
CAC has conceptualised and has been conducting a unique
programme called ‘Raganubhava’ – appreciating, enjoying and experiencing the beauties
of a Raga. CAC has so far conducted twelve such programmes covering twelve
Ragas.
·
SAHITYANUBHAVA (click
here for sample audio)
CAC has also pioneered in bringing out a concept,
‘Sahityanubhava’ – Appreciating and experiencing the beauty of lyrics. These
programmes are aimed at a better understanding and appreciation of Carnatic
Music. Two such programmes have been conducted so far, evoking an overwhelming
response from the public.
·
The other unique
concept oriented programmes that have been planned are ‘LAYANUBHAVA’ & ‘NATYANUBHAVA’,
where the rhythmic aspects of music and music through dance can also be
appreciated, enjoyed and experienced.
· The first Carnatic Organization to celebrate the WORLD MUSIC DAY on 21 June 2001. (click here for a sample clip)
·
NEWSLETTER
CAC has been publishing a Newsletter, ‘CAC Newsletter’ on a
monthly basis highlighting the beautiful aspects of the Ragas being discussed
in the Raganubhava sessions. This is distributed free of cost to all the
Rasikas and Musicians. CAC has, so far, published 11 Newsletters.
·
CAC has also been
conducting Quiz and best Article Competitions for Rasikas and Music Lovers on a
monthly basis.
·
The latest and most
pioneering achievement of CAC is its comprehensive music and dance portal, www.carnatica.com.
A unique feature is the ‘Cyber Vidyalaya’,
which offers online learning of Music. One can also become a member of Carnatica Club
and avail plenty of benefit.
·
CAC has a huge
collection of books, recordings and manuscripts and is continuing to build its
archives.
·
VADYANUBHAVA
– (click
here for sample audio) The latest feather in the cap of Carnatica Archival Centre, that is going
places in its very infancy, is the Vadyanubhava festival which was conducted as
part of the millennium celebrations, between 24th and 30th
November 2000 at Narada Gana Sabha. This was a unique ‘Edutainment’ event for
which the Public was welcome in large numbers at practically no cost.
This festival featured over 30 top instrumentalists like Sri
T N Krishnan (Violin), Sri Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, Sri N. Ramani (Flute), Sri Ravikiran
(Chitravina), Sri Kadri Gopalnath (Saxophone), the Lalgudi family, to mention a
few. Every instrument characteristic to Carnatic Music and those that have been
adapted into Carnatic Music were also been included. Besides, audio-visual
presentations of each of the instruments and their features were also being
projected to create awareness about the instruments, the Artistes and of
course, the All – time Greats who have contributed towards the evolution and
development of the various instruments and their styles.
These programmes have been received with great enthusiasm by
the Artistes, Public and Press, alike.
All the above ventures of CAC have received tremendous response
from the Rasikas, Musicians, Music students and Teachers alike. The music
community has greatly benefited from the services of CAC.
Documentation projects
CAC has digitally documented around 2500 odd compositions of
various composers by eminent Musicians like Smt. T.Muktha of Vina Dhanammal
tradition, Sri Sethalapathy Balasubramaniam, Sri Tanjore Sankara Iyer, Sri Chitravina
N.Ravikiran, Sri. S.R.Janakiraman and also young stars like Sanjay Subramanian,
Unnikrishnan, Nithyasree, T.M.Krishna, M.S.Sheela and many others.
Commemorations
CAC had commemorated Smt. T.
Brinda’s Day with concerts of Smt.
T. Muktha and Smt. Vegavahini Vijayaraghavan, hailing from the same
tradition.
·
CAC also paid its
tributes to Vidwan Late Sri. Calcutta
Krishnamurthy by having a week long music session of concerts by his
disciples which included Smt. Sudha Raghunathan, Shashikiran, Unnikrishnan,
Sanjay Subramanian and others.
·
CAC commemorated Sangita Kalanidhi Dr.S.Ramanathan Day by
giving ‘CAC Excellence’ Awards to Sri. T. S. Parthasarathy (Music
Historian) and Sri. Rajagopalan (for the work called ‘Garland’),
followed by a concert of Sri.Tanjore Sankara Iyer.
·
CAC commemorated Sri.Ramnad Krishnan’s Day by projecting and
audio-visual presentation of the biography of the veteran and this was followed
by concerts of Smt. Rama Ravi and Dr. Ritha Rajan.
·
CAC commemorated
the Birth Centenary of the multifaceted Sri.
Ranga Ramanuja Ayyangar on the 9th February 2001, when a
commemoration souvenir was also released. A concert of his Daughter and
Disciple, Smt. Padma Varadan, was also featured on this occasion.
www.carnatica.com
www.carnatica.com, the latest
web portal on music and dance to hit cyber space was launched on 10th September
2000. Within the short span of just over 2 months, it has already registered a
hit-rate of over 1.2 million! The promoters of the site are the young Carnatic
vocalists S Sowmya and K N Shashikiran, who already have earned a reputation of
being techno-savvy musicians, with several innovations to their credit, like
the world’s first CD ROM and VCD on Carnatic music and so on.
Coming to Carnatica.com, it is a
portal with a huge database running to several hundred pages and is updated on
a daily basis. It was started to preserve and promote Carnatic music and such
other great art forms at an international level, with a 4-E formula of Education,
Exposure, Entertainment and E-Commerce. It aims to offer something for everyone - the layman, the
connoisseur, the old and the young.
But why is Carnatica.com a web
portal and not just a website? What is it that makes it different from other Carnatic
sites?
Well, for starters, it provides
comprehensive info not only on Carnatic music, but also other genres of music
like Hindustani, Western, Indonesian, Tamil, Devotional and other music systems
of the world. Besides, it has comprehensive sections on other important art
forms like dance (which includes Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, Mohiniattam
etc), folk arts (Country tunes) and Harikatha, the ancient but dying art. The
Carnatic section perhaps, has the largest database on this subject over the net
with over 1000 pages of material covering the A-Z of this system, giving detailed info on the origin, history, great
composers and masters of this art. The Music Handbook, a much-needed tool, is a
ready reckoner for rasikas with charts, song lists, an address book of artistes
and organisations and the all-important online dictionary to decode jargons!
The other unique features of this
site are the Cyber Vidyalaya, a new concept in music education, which offers
music lessons at various levels. You have the 3-year full-fledged course for
those who want to start from scratch and also a learn-by-choice course for
those who already have a music background and either want to brush up or learn
specific songs. All at a very low cost. Of course, the idea has met with great
success and Carnatica's Cyber Vidyalaya already has several students now.
Carnatica Club, again is a
never-heard-of-before thing. As the name suggests, it is a music and dance club
that offers online as well as offline benefits for its members at a nominal
cost. Like free passes for music or dance related events, or many hours of free
music on the net and so on. The membership is again open to all with special
discounts for students and senior citizens.
The Arcade is the cyber shopping mall
offering various music and dance related stuff such as instruments, books,
music albums, dance costumes and accessories, paintings and photographs. Other
special sections include the Listeners' Choice where one can choose any raga,
song, artiste or composer of their choice, which Carnatica will make available
either over the net or offline - like a custom-made CD or cassette. The Event
Management or Utility services offer every possible service that one could
think of, starting from arranging music/dance shows for artistes or
organizations, booking tickets for events, repairing instruments or the
much-needed service of converting old cassettes/spool tapes into CDs or DAT,
developing webpages or providing contents for websites/books/magazines.
Carnatica also has a separate
section for kids called the Kiddies' Corner. The Rasika Centre is another
exclusive section for music/dance lovers and includes interesting titbits of
info and also encourages queries, articles, reviews or reports from the rasikas
themselves. Sections like the Brain Stimulators, Current Affairs, Hot n Spicy,
Special features, Guru Vandanam, Tribute, Open House (a discussion forum) etc
are the ever-interesting sections, attracting one and all. For the music
season, Carnatica has started a separate section called the Madras Music Mela
which covers the entire gamut of the pre-season, season and post-season
activities. Other important world events are also covered by Carnatica with
great elan.
The Carnatica team comprises a mix
of young and old people who are bound by their dedication to art and culture.
The Editor of the site is Kiranavali Vidyasankar, a young musician herself.
Besides, the site gets inputs from various experts in the field, like Prof. S R
Janakiraman, Dr. V V Srivatsa, Smt Seetha Rajan, veteran painter S Rajam and
cartoonist Sarathy on a regular basis. Carnatica also has several correpondents
based in various parts of the world like US, Canada, Singapore and so on. In
other words, Carnatica stands for quality.
My Music Album
Carnatica offers the unique concept of My Music album- Make your own
CDs, where a member or anyone who is aware of this concept can record his or
her favorite songs. It so happens that most of the time one may not be able to
procure certain songs. This is where Carnatica comes into picture. Here
in Carnatica we have a repertoire of songs with an exhaustive,
incomparable and enviable list. Carnatica offers a wide variety of
Music-Classical Carnatic, Hindustani, Folk, Devotional, Children songs, films, Christian
and Muslim devotionals and you name it and we have it. Carnatica has a
comprehensive catalogue on songs systematically coded.
We have a collection spanning from vintage artist of 1900s to
the present daystars and all songs have been obtained with full copyrights
Cyber Vidyalaya, a college on the web
For
the first time in the history of Indian music, Carnatica takes the lead
in bringing to you the path breaking online music Vidyalaya in keeping with the
times. A blend of traditional learning from leading gurus in the modern,
hi-tech cyber-world. It offers full fledged Diploma Courses or one has the
option of learning on a song basis.
Carnatica Gurukulum
Global Mobile Gurukulam
for Indian Music and Dance
Branches in Adyar, Mylapore and Coimbatore offer the
following.
Ø Professional
Courses in Music & Dance with a Panel of experienced, expert faculty.
Ø Regular
Classes for all age groups, all levels in carnatic Vocal, Instrumental,
Devotional, Hindustani Music & Bharathanatyam.
Ø Special
Tutorial Centre for Diploma & Degree Courses in Music
Ø Special
workshops and Short term special Courses by renowned personalities.
Ø Clinic
& Career Centre for aspirants, professionals
Ø .Audio -
Video technology and Art Journalism courses
Ø Special
Bani courses in music and dance
Ø Online
courses also available at Cybervidyalaya in www.carnatica.com