2009-10 Music Season Musings

December is the month many Carnatic music lovers, look forward to, for it is in December that the annual music season begins.

This year’s season has been very fulfilling for me as I, despite a hectic schedule at work,

• managed to attend many concerts of two of my favorite vocalists – in fact attended almost all the concerts of one of them,
• attended concerts of my favorite mrudangam artists,
• attended many lec dems, some of which were very interesting and well presented (will post about these lec dems in detail in due course of time),
• attended concerts of many “young artists” (for lack of a better term) and almost attended all the concerts of one of them whom I absolutely loved listening to,
• met many friends/ fellow rasikas who live outside Chennai but manage to drop in religiously almost every year for the music season,
• splurged on the annual music season sale, and
• last but not the least, performed in concerts that added to the learning and to the experience

Some things that I felt could still be improved are:

• accessibility to sabhas/ stage for the physically handicapped (Erode Nagaraj had written about it earlier at http://erodenagaraj.blogspot.com/2009/11/access-denied.html)
• acoustics in many of the halls/auditoriums
• sticking to time allotted for concerts by the artists
• cleanliness of the toilets in many venues
• quality of food and service at many of the canteens, especially when the demand is high
• sensibility on the part of the listeners (ex. avoiding speaking on mobile phones and keeping mobile phones switched off or on silent/vibrate mode while listening to a concert, avoiding loud conversations inside the hall where a concert is on etc)

It’s really saddening to see the season draw to a close. But as they say, all good things must come to an end.

Let me take this opportunity to wish you all a great year ahead!