Project Rationale
The rich and diverse knowledge systems and exchange networks that define the traditional art forms are especially vulnerable today when the arts are often under pressure to turn into spectacles or entertainment products.
Our objective is to create a high quality, comprehensive, curated and free to access digital archive for students, musicians, scholars and the general public comprising the finest and diverse set of resources and knowledge systems of Indian Classical Music and select performing arts traditions. As part of our long term vision for this project we plan to grow it into a meeting space (Live and Digital) for Indian performing arts discourses and exchanges as well as a platform for enabling collaborations worldwide.
Project Proposal
We are proposing that we launch a massive documentation drive i.e., film and record as audio/visuals the remaining Gurus of Indian Classical Music and select Performing Arts, living in different parts of India and create a Public Digital Archive that is free and easy to use for all people worldwide. This online digital archive will function like a reference library and a meeting place for all those who are interested in Indian art and culture and specially in Indian Art Music also known as Indian Classical Music.
1. Documenting Gurus And Artists
Apart from recording the compositions by the Guru and with a special focus on the material that is lesser performed on concert stages and therefore at risk of erasure in the oral tradition, we are also looking at documenting a range of extra material. Each Guru will also be interviewed extensively and filmed while teaching students and providing commentaries on the compositions. As it evolves after it goes public around December 2025, the digital archive will be constantly renewed with meetings/podcasts and forums with contemporary musicians and artists with an interface between live and digital, offline and online. This will keep generating new material and make it both responsive to and reflective of the needs of the ecosystem from time to time.
2. First Light Series
Another key component of this project is our First Light series of Live and Digital concerts in which we work with younger classical musicians across India usually in alternate public spaces like bookstores, colleges and parks. We hope to specially encourage young musicians to delve into their traditions and lineages while presenting public concerts with exquisite, aesthetically rich compositions that appeal to them and which are lesser heard on mainstream concert stages today.
3. Capacity building for young musicians and developing their networks across Cities
The First Light concerts will be presented in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore initially and eventually hopefully expand to Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. A key aspect of this series is the work we will put in to build the capacities of young musicians with a focus on their communication skills as well as audience engagement at the Live concerts so that they are invested in audience building at an early stage in their careers. As they prepare to delve deeper into their inherited traditions, we help them script their conversations with listeners based on the aesthetically significant material that they present at the concert with the focus once again on lesser performed material and of archival value. We also hope to promote networks and associations among the community of emerging musicians across Indian cities. One of the approaches we are experimenting with is to involve a younger musician or colleague to present the main artists and explain the material being presented as well as the lineage of the artists including the creative process and preparation for a concert.
Each concert in a public space will be filmed and shared on the popular First Edition Arts YouTube channel (more than 118000 subscribers worldwide) and social media platforms of other location partners in order to promote the young musicians worldwide till the public website is ready.
We believe that involving younger musicians in a comprehensive documentation archive will also help create an intergenerational connect between more Gurus and young musicians and ensure that a wider set of traditional material from all lineages is presented, heard and discussed by Live and digital audiences worldwide.
4. Young musicians in public/alternate spaces in Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore
First Light series is a curated series with 6 concerts in Bangalore and Pune; and 12 concerts in Mumbai. So, 24 concerts in all in a year.
1. Sunday mornings from 10 am to 12 noon every alternate month at the Bangalore International Centre Foyer, Domlur, Bangalore.
2. 3rd Friday evenings from 8 pm to 10 pm every alternate month at KitabKhana, Fort, Mumbai
3. 3rd Sunday morning every alternate month from 9.30 am to 11.30 am at the Ruia College Ground Floor Lecture Hall or the open air quadrangle, Matunga, Mumbai.
4. 3rd Sunday evening from 8 pm to 10 pm every alternate month at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Law College Road, Pune