Fête de la Musique, translated as “World Music Day celebration” has come a long way since its birth in France in the year 1976. Conceptualised by American musician Joel Cohen, it is celebrated every year on the June 21 around the world, to mark the beginning of the Summer Solstice.
Carnatica a pioneering music organistion based in Chennai, founded by Carnatic musicians S. Sowmya & K.N.Shashikiran has celebrated this day each year by way of innovative events and this year is no different.
Carnatica, in association with Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha is organising an event dedicated to global peace and harmony tomorrow at Arkay Convention Centre at 5:00 p.m. Billed also as a tribute to legend Pandit Ravi Shankar, the programme will kick off with the Madras Youth Choir Juniors and Sub Juniors.
This will be followed by a panel discussion on the contributions of those musicians who have taken Indian music to the rest of the world. Guest speakers taking part in the discussion are S. Shashank, Sikkil Gurucharan, Anil Srinivasan and Subasree Thanikachalam. The discussion will be moderated by K.N. Shashikiran.
Some of the artists scheduled to perform tomorrow are popular duo Anil Srinivasan, Sikkil Gurucharan, Abhishek Raguram and Anantha R. Krishnan - grandsons of legendary mridangam maestro Palghat Raghu - violin exponent Embar Kannnan and Keyboard K. Sathyanarayana. The evening will also feature the Carnatica Brothers, K.N. Shashikiran and P. Ganesh who will perform some live unplugged music.
"In today's context, with so many unexpected incidents and mishaps happening in the world, I believe that spreading peace and harmony is best possible through music. So we musicians, though performing in different parts of the world, decided to come together to celebrate World Music Day and spread peace and harmony in the world," says Shashikiran.
This event is open to all.