While the origins of Carnatic music can be traced back to the Natyasastra which has been dated to about 500 BC, it has remained a vibrant and living art form to this day. The Twentieth century (and the twenty first!) has seen a remarkable range of composers who have greatly enriched the concert repertoire. Their compositions span a range of languages and formats, from varnams to Krithis, with something for every level of musicians from beginners to experts.
The theme for this year's Composers day will be 20th Century compositions. The following is an (incomplete) list of some of these composers. We will continue to add to this list as rasikas and teachers register new compositions to sing.
- Mysore Vasudevachar (1865-1961)
- Kotiswara Iyer (1870-1936)
- Harikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavatar (1877-1945)
- Papanasam Sivan (1890-1973)
- Dandapani Desikar (1908-1972)
- Ogirala Veeraraghava Sarma (Gnyananda Teerta) (1908-1989)
- Periasamy Thooran (1908-1987)
- G.N. Balasubramanian (1910-1965)
- Ambujam Krishna (1917-1989)
- Jaya Chamaraja Wodeyar (1919-1974)
- Neela Ramamoorthy (1923-)
- T.K.Govinda Rao (1929-2011)
- Lalgudi Jayaraman (1930-2013)
- Balamurali Krishna (1930-2016)
- Dayananda Saraswathi (1930-)
Shruti Laya would like to celebrate this amazing group of composers in the next composers day on Saturday Dec.9 2017. As usual, this will be a full day program and all students and artists are invited to perform in groups (music or dance) at this event. There will be a participation fee of $5 per artist. There will also be an opportunity for two or three solo mini concerts or dance performances of 20 minutes each.
In order to have a successful composer's day event and ensure the widest range of participation, we shall have the following rules
- Only compositions of any of the composers listed above are allowed. (If we missed out any twentieth century composers, please let us know and we will add their names too!).
- Group participation strongly preferred (Exceptions will be allowed for students learning remotely)
- We strongly encourage applications by teachers for their students. However, if there is a group of students learning remotely from the same or different teachers who want to join together to perform in this event, they can also reach out to us directly
- Each teacher's group will be allowed 15 minutes. Larger groups (6 or more members) can extend up to 20 minutes.
- Accompanists: Participants are free to arrange their own accompanists (violin/mrudangam). There are also likely to be music students who want to accompany, so please let us know if you want us to arrange accompaniments.
As usual, we would like to avoid repetition. Please scroll through the list below, to make sure your choice of Keerthanas is not already taken.
We now have semi-automatic registration for the event. Please fill out the form below for the items that you wish to perform (separate form for each Keerthana) and click Submit. After we review the submissions (usually in a couple of days), they will be added to the list. We will reach out to you if the song you selected has already been allocated to someone else (if they requested the same song ahead of you).