The Music Academy, Madras

In the 1920s erstwhile Madras, a group of music lovers who believed in the power of music to transcend language and bring people together, founded an academy to foster talent and provide a haven for all classical music enthusiasts. In 1946, this academy found a new home at the 'Sweet Home' bungalow on Mowbrays Road which is where it still is; only today it is known as The Music Academy, Madras. Over the years the academy has established itself as one of the foremost names for Carnatic music lauded and loved by artists, musicians and rasikas from all over the world.

The Academy's focused efforts to perpetuate culture and music has been vital in promoting Carnatic music in the country and internationally.The web site of the Academy has been comprehensively redesigned to become more user friendly and rich with enhanced content. The Music Academy library is solely maintained and growing due to the generous support from prominent donorsand has been comprehensively upgraded with better and more accessible arrangement of the nearly 5000 books including rare books, new software and cataloguing system, digitization of rare books and photographs. This ongoing project is enabled by an earlier munificent grant given by 'A.Sivasailam Charities' and carried out by RojaMuthiah library and coordinated by experienced library consultant Sri.Jagadish. The library with its valuable archive of rare books, manuscripts and music tapes, takes these efforts to the next level. The Academy's modern Listening Archives comprising the digitized music recordings are accessible to any individual musician. The Academy's collection of in-house journals and publications has significantly contributed towards musical research and are regularly used as reference points to put forward Carnatic music theories.

The Academy also houses an Advanced School of Carnatic Music with distinguished faculty members, offering youngsters an advanced and comprehensive education in music. Expanding its horizons, the Academy has signed MOUs with organisations like the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society (SIFAS) in Singapore, and Kalakruti School of Music, in Melbourne, for academicaffiliation and support. Reinforcing its position as a premium institute for Carnatic music is the Academy's recognition as a Research Centre from the University of Tumkur.

The Academy plays host to events like conferences, an annual ten-day youth festival of music and dance, a series of monthly concerts and an annual dance festival, throughout the year. Concerts - promoting music are regularly held at the academy thanks to endowments initiated by patrons. The highlight event on The Music Academy, Madras's calendar is The Annual Music Festival held in the month of December. It is a prestigious gathering of musicians, composers, musicologists and rasikas from around the world.

Adding to its list of festivals, The Music Academy has also started two mid-year mini festivals for music and dance in 2016 to offer a platform for talented young artistes. Made possible through generous endowments,these will be conducted annually.