About Us
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| Sampradaya is a voluntary, non-commercial organisation engaged in documentation and archiving of South Indian music traditions for the past two and a half decades. Founded in 1980, it was constituted as a Society in 1981. The perception underlying its' founding was: |
| There is more to our musical traditions than what are identified and supported by the commercial concert system - many master musicians, who are repositories of great musical traditions, live and fade away in relative anonymity the resources thus neglected, need to be documented, preserved and made available to musicians, students of music and researchers. |
Thus Sampradaya came into existence with the purpose of documenting and preserving valuable music traditions as represented by master musicians. As its memorandum declares, the objective of the Society is “to do, make and procure all such acts and things as may be necessary to retain and conserve the living traditions of South Indian music without any commercial gain whatsoever.” Complementing the actual musical performances by masters, Sampradaya has also been conducting in depth interviews with them, getting them to talk at length about their art, the tradition of music they represent, their times, their moments of glory and disappointment. The resources thus built up over the years are simply invaluable. |
Inaugural Address: |
Mr.Obul Reddy, the first big benefactor of Sampradaya after the Ford Foundation, in his inaugural address, commended the quiet but meaningful service Sampradaya has been rendering to Music over the past 25 years, by identifying many aspects of Music which need attention by way of a focused study and carrying out archival documentation of the art and opinions of great exponents. Since Sampradaya had been playing the unique and useful role of bridging the past and the future of our musical legacy, he appealed to the public at large to support the institution in its laudable endeavours. Topics chosen for the Lec-dem were: |
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The Project will conclude with lecdems by Vidwan Palghat Raghu and Vidwan Umayalpuram Sivaraman for which dates will be announced soon. |
| While Sampradaya has been mainly concerned with documentation and archival preservation of musical material, it has also been engaged in dissemination of resources through: |
Concerts: Sampradaya organizes public concerts, but always with a difference. It features not only the stars , but also those who, though not often heard in concert circuits for one reason or the other, have something artistically valuable to offer. The concerts invariably have a theme, a- certain significance beyond the holding of the particular concert itself: for instance, rare compositions of a composer or compositions in rare raga-s and so on. And, in what is perhaps its boldest experiment, amplification is deliberately done away with so that the true tone of the master's voice or the true timbre of the Veena or the flute comes through. |
Workshops and seminars: These are aimed at dissemination of musical repertoire from masters to young students. The Veena Dhanam ‘ Bani' workshop for instance imparted repertoire from this great musical tradition to selected young musicians. |
| Audio and printed library: Its audio and printed library is perhaps what Sampradaya is best known for among music lovers in Chennai. The library, which contains copies of SAMPRADAYA's archival material and also a fair collection of books related to music, is available to any interested person for use, at no cost at all. |
| The Sampradaya Newsletter: Another important organ of dissemination, the quarterly newsletter carries information about SAMPRADAYA's activities and archival holdings and also researched musical material. |
| From the beginning, Sampradaya set itself the broad agenda of documenting the various traditions of South Indian music - temple music, folk music, ritualistic music - and not just Carnatic concert music. Besides the musical material generated by its own documentation, the Sampradaya archives also include recordings donated by collectors. In the two decades of its existence, Sampradaya has grown to acquire some truly unique and precious archival material through its documentation projects. It now houses around 3,000 hours of listening material. These include music of masters like “Tiger” Varadacharyar, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Ramnad Krishnan, G.N. Balasubramaniam, M.D. Ramanathan, Semmangudi and K.V. Narayanaswamy and lesser known composer-musicians like Cuddalore Subramaniam and also Tevaram music, folk music, music of classical dance forms like Bharatanatyam, Kathakali and so on; besides these, Sampradaya has in depth interviews of practitioners of various traditions of South Indian music. |
Sampradaya has a collection of hand written notations, manuscripts, personal diaries, letters and personal belongings of these maestros. Sampradaya also has a huge collection of rare photographs more than seventy five years old of artists of yester years from different fields like music, drama, dance etc. |
| The archival holdings are preserved both in cassettes and in spools, and though preserved in air-conditioned environs. The |
