Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM), with legendary guitarist / composer – Prasanna to lead MARG’s music foundation as its President. SAM will be the first ever professional academy of music in India to offer a series of programs in contemporary music that includes Rock, Jazz, Classical and World music. With Voice, Guitar, Piano, Bass, Drums and Indian Percussion concert as its spotlight. SAM will commence its first 6 month diploma certificate course in July 2010. SAM is an exclusive residential campus spread over a sprawling 4 acre blossoming green environs at MARG Swarnabhoomi. The site is situated on the outskirts of Chennai, hub with 75 kms from Chennai and 60 kms from Pondicherry approximately.
SAM will have an internationally acumen faculty; sophisticated infrastructure & amenities beyond compare in the world. SAM’s pioneering curriculum will offer potential musicians a strong USP and an enriching musical vocabulary to groom them for an exhilarating career in a widespread spectrum of 21st century music.
SAM will not only sway the long felt need for a comprehensive contemporary music education in India, nevertheless a whopping preference to academies in western countries and elsewhere for musicians from around the world to come and experience in a truly Indian and yet global insight at an appreciable cost
Raga Chintamani is a simple book which contains all ragas of Karnatic music listed in alphabetical order. Arohana and Avarohana (Ascend and descend) of each raga is listed, along with any interesting/useful information related to the said raga. After this all tamil movie songs, composed using this particular raga are listed along with their movie name. The collection of tamil movie songs is pretty exhaustive, some 1800+. But I couldn’t make much sense out of it, as my knowledge/interest in tamil movies is near zero, except few whose Hindi versions have been popular. The book also has music related quiz in each page, some introduction to various types of ragas in the beginning and a comprehensive appendix of all tamil movie songs and their ragas at the end, as well as a quick biography of few doyens of Tamil film music.
“If people can recognize the raga of a cine song, they can also appreciate the classical music in the same raga. If they are able to listen to 10 cine songs in Kalyani, they can easily identify many classical songs that are set in Kalyani…” Author writes, explaining the purpose of the book.
Would have been great if someone could bring out a similar book in other languages-Kannada, Telugu etc.Some key information/observations from my side (from this book and in general)
1 Gopala Gopala song of Humse Hain Muqabula (Errani Gorrani Gopala of Kadalan) Kuchi Kuchi Rakamma of Bombay. Roja Jaaneman (Kadhal Rojave) of Roja are all composed in kapi raga
2. Madhyamavathi raga is believed to have powers of washing away your sins attained by singing apaswaras (singing improperly)- If you sing a song of madhyamavati raga at the end of the concert, all your sins will be destroyed. So after irritating your audience for hours and forcing them to stuff cotton into their ears, be sure to sing a song in Madhyamavathi raga.
3. Amritha Varshini raga is believed to be the one that can cause rains. It is not clear which raga can be used to stop rains (and Bihar flood may be)5. Madhyamavathi raga consists of only black reeds of keyboard- Sa ri ma pa ni sa- Sa ni pa ma ri sa.
4. Tu hi re-Tu hi re song of Bombay is composed in Hari Kambhoji. The song- Telephone dun main hasne vaali of Hindustani (Telephone Manipol of Indian in Tamil) looks kind of modern, but sung in good old Anandha Bhairavi
Images from 3rd party websites. Also visit Author’s Blog
Carrefour Plans to come up with 4-5 Retail Stores in India by end-2010
Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer, has secured four properties in four cities across India and plans to set up 4 to 5 cash-and-carry stores by the end of 2010.
The French retail giant has signed for properties averaging about 100,000 square feet each in New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad and is in the process of signing up a fifth property in Mumbai.
Real estate financing in India has changed significantly over the past 50 years for both developers and buyers. Real estate developers have seen the universe of funding agencies expanding from unorganised moneylenders to the entire gamut of funding sources, including loans from banks and housing finance institutions (HFIs), private equity, public equity offerings, bonds, and debentures. Buyers have seen the shift from own resource-funded home purchases to bank-funded mortgage finance.
State Bank of India (SBI) will increase by ten-fold its loan limit to individuals planning to buy land to build a house as the country’s largest lender makes a greater push into the housing segment. The bank has finalised a proposal under which it will lend Rs 10 crore for buying land for housing against the earlier cap of Rs 1 crore.
RE/MAX a forerunner in realty sector providing management solutions for their Indian operations announced on Monday, May 3 that they are going to open an advanced Real Estate Management platform in the country. For this they have entered in partnership with Gryphtech a major provider of enterprise software applications, solutions and services.
NRI Tamilians and Carnatic music fans will be having a memorable summer this season, as Tamil Nadu Foundation and Bharathi Kala Manram are presenting several cultural events and music concerts at various parts of the United States this May and June.
Marg is delighted to join hands with Bharathi Kala Manram (BKM) and Tamil Nadu Foundation (TNF) as grand sponsor for Lakshman Shruti event at Houston Meenakshi Temple.
Sukhisivam (Orator), Davakotai Ramanathan, TMS Selvakumar, Krish, Lakshman, Malati Lakshmanan and Mahati will be performing during the event.
Mark your calendar and make sure to attend this event. More event details are available here
Date: Saturday June 5th 2010,
Time: 2PM to 10PM.
Venue: Meenakshi Temple, 17130 McLean Road, Pearland, TX 77584-4630 (281) 489-0358
As introduced in our earlier post, next edition of Chicago Tyagaraja Utsavam is scheduled for May 29th to 31st, at the Sama Rathi auditorium & Gupta Hall at the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago (HTGC), Lemont, IL.
Address; 10915 Lemont Road, Lemont, IL, United States – (630) 972-0300
Its a must attend community event for all Carnatic music lovers who’re settled far away from their mother land. So be sure to mark your calendar and be there this month end.
Main attractions of this year’s edition of CTU are: May 29th:
* Vishnu Sahasranama Stotram (8:00am)
* Chetulaara on instruments (children) (8:55am)
* Pancharatnam (9:00am)
* Nauka Charitram (10:30 AM)
* Homage to Tyagaraja (Teacher Sessions, Groups and Individual Sessions)
May 30th:
* Homage to Tyagaraja (Accompanied Performances) (8:30am)
* Gayathri Venkataraghavan (Vocal) (2:00 pm)
* Vijay Siva (Vocal) (6:00pm)
May 31st:
*Children’s Utsava Sampradaya Kritis procession (9:00 AM)
*Prince Rama Varma of Travancore (Vocal) (1:00pm)
*Chitravina N Ravikiran (5:00pm)
Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM), with legendary guitarist / composer – Prasanna to lead MARG’s music foundation as its President. SAM will be the first ever professional academy of music in India to offer a series of programs in contemporary music that includes Rock, Jazz, Classical and World music. With Voice, Guitar, Piano, Bass, Drums and Indian Percussion concert as its spotlight. SAM will commence its first 6 month diploma certificate course in July 2010. SAM is an exclusive residential campus spread over a sprawling 4 acre blossoming green environs at MARG Swarnabhoomi. The site is situated on the outskirts of Chennai, hub with 75 kms from Chennai and 60 kms from Pondicherry approximately.
