It’s a special year for the 31-day Ramanavami Sangeeta Utsava of the Chamarajpet Ramaseva Mandali — to be held from March 25 to April 24 — as it is stepping into its 80th year. Not only will it play host to the ‘Global Music Festival’ with nearly 150 performing artistes, there will also be an 80-violin ensemble led by Mysore Manjunath for the Foundation Day on March 29
This will also be the first time that the Global Music Festival will be live-streamed in 130 countries, including the U.S., Australia and England. “It has been a long pending demand from music connoisseurs abroad. Now, for the first time since the Utsava was held in 1939, registered members of the Mandali will be able to enjoy our Ramothsava music live. This year also marks yet another new beginning as we are the first Mandali in south India to get the FCRA licence from the Ministry of Home Affairs, which makes it easy for transparent contributions from people abroad,” said S.N. Varadaraj, general secretary, Chamarajpet Ramaseva Mandali.
Having already received ₹10 lakh from the Karnataka government, the Mandali is now hoping for allotment of central funds. “We hope INTACH too recognises our cultural offerings as a ‘Heritage Fest’ in this special year. After all, our musical extravaganza is now part of the cultural map of Bengaluru,” said Mr. Varadaraj.
Online tickets
The year of firsts will also see the debut of online tickets ( www.ramanavamitickets.com ), which, the organisers said, was done to address the serpentine queues for tickets outside the pendal .
“The response has been overwhelming with the young IT crowd instantly grabbing the seasonal passes,” said Abhijith Varadaraj, the third generation member of the family who has brought in several new features to the Mandali’s online presence. “People will love our online listing, as every member of the ‘co-creating music team’ is spoken about without discrimination by calling them ‘accompanists’. We also have an online music magazine portal, which was started this year. The most exciting part is our library wherein nearly one lakh hours of music — from 10,000 concerts with nearly 500 artistes — is being digitised from our spool recordings. This digital library will be opened soon,” he added.
