The prime mover of Thyagaraja Aradhana Festival at Cleveland, USA, says carnatic music is at the peak of its health. Those who think otherwise have either not savoured better music or have ideas of classical music, gathered during study and research, pointing to a glorious past.
Ask Cleveland Sundaram, a name synonymous with music festival in North America. Dedicated to propagating Indian classical arts in Cleveland, he is the prime organiser in India and the secretary of Bhairavi Fine Arts in USA. He helps run the Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival that celebrated its 36th year in the spring of 2013. A brilliant professional, who retired as the managing director of Covansys, a US-based technology company, Sundaram has a masters in Computer Science from USA and another masters in Business Administration from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. He divides his time between India and the US.
What makes you a brilliant music analyst and a music buff?
Nostalgically, he says, “My young days spent at Tinnevelly District on the banks of river Tambarabarani, Tamil Nadu, gave me the base. Also, my father was deeply interested in music and my mother belonged to a sangeetha parampara. There used to be aganda bhajanai every day at the house and the entire atmosphere used to be musical.”
What is the secret of your success in promoting classical arts in USA?
It is my personal relationship with artistes. I take all the artistes (known and unknown) to the North American audience, and the students in North America are encouraged to listen, learn and educate themselves. This festival is the ‘virtual prime mover’.
Any memorable concerts in North America?
Oh, Muktha’s brilliant concert on padam/javali, Manakkal Rengarajan’s speedy lyrical outflow, the various jugalbhandhi programmes with Flute Ramani, Ravi Kiran, Balamurali and so on. All the concerts which have been held are memorable.
How about funding?
Funding for the Cleveland Festival is always a problem. The total expenditure for this annual event is in the range of four lakh US dollars, and the ticket collection for the same is in the range of 60,000 US dollars. There is always a deficit. As of now, we have a deficit of two lakh fifty thousand US dollars, inspite of patronage from outside.
Future plans?
We are proposing to organise a fund-raising committee and we are also tackling with resourcefulness.
What is your opinion about the guru-shishya relationship now?
In simple words, I can say that the bonding that existed between the teacher and the student is slowly vanishing with the advent of Skype. Earlier in music, there was depth and not breadth, but now, there is breadth and no depth in music presentation.
What is the genesis of the festival?
I believe that music should not drop from enlightenment to entertainment, from a serious cultural pursuit to a medium of exciting social get together or as a relief from the boredom of humdrum life.
Hurry, restlessness and social snobbery, have made a combined assault on an exalted culture that has been nourished over centuries by saints and seers. Aradhana strives to broadly reflect our culture as exemplified by a saint’s life.
The traditional rituals, the music socialisation in many languages, the fragrance of incense sticks, the arena of typical South Indian home cooking and the glittering clothes — all blend to create an ambience reminiscent of our mother land. We place more emphasis on children’s participation and also play host to musicians and a number of visitors, mostly South Indians, settled in different parts of the US.
(The gentle-speaking Tinnevelly-born is known for his devotion to art and I attribute Cleveland Sundaram’s stupendous energy and drive to his complete absorption in music to his ‘love for music’, which is ingrained in him, together with his inborn qualities of leadership and a charismatic personality)
