For those used to the good-old Bangalore Gayana Samaja on K.R. Road, the samaja’s 47th annual music conference from October 25 to November 1 will be a nostalgic and a memorable one. For, the building, built in 1962, will soon be demolished to make way for a swanky four-storey building with an auditorium accessible from three levels.
“If everything goes according to our plans, the Gayana Samaja’s 110-year-old cultural heritage will soon shift to a new building costing Rs.13 crore,” said Dr. M.R.V. Prasad, president of the Gayana Samaja. “We are looking for temporary arrangements for next year’s programme during the reconstruction phase. We are considering National College, Mahila Seva Samaja or the Kuvempu Kalakshetra. We will settle down for the one that will consider our heritage value and offer us the venue at a reasonable rent. The programmes will be held there until the new building on K.R. Road is ready,” Dr. Prasad said.
Meanwhile, the last of 2015’s national conference on the old samaja premises is dedicated to M.S. Subbulakshmi, he said. Carnatic classical vocalist M.S. Sheela, the conference president for 2015, will receive the Gayana Samaja’s prestigious ‘Sangeetha Kalarathna’ Award. Sri Kala Jyothi awardees given to achievers in the music field include H.S. Venugopal (flute), M.G. Gopalakrishnan (mridanga), Anuradha Madhusudan (veena), and Mysorean Himanshu for music promotion.
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While the mornings will have lectures, the evenings will see concerts by Unnikrishnan, Trichur Brothers, Abhishek Raghuram, Saralaya Sisters, O.S. Thyagarajan, Ganesh-Kumaresh and R.K. Padmanabha. The conference will be inaugurated at 10 a.m. with the inaugural concert by M.S. Sheela at 6 p.m.