Friday, March 20, 2015

The Academy Students at GIMA awards with Shankar Mahadevan

The Global Indian Music Academy (GIMA) Awards is an initiative started in 2010 to acknowledge and celebrate exceptional talent across different Indian music genres. The Fifth Global Indian Music Academy Awards (GiMA) ceremony was held recently in Mumbai. 12 students of the Shankar Mahadevan Academy got a golden opportunity to perform "Taare Zameen Par" with Shankar Mahadevan on this prestigious platform. These young singers, between ages 5 to 10, were part of the Academy's popular "Grow with Music" Program for Schools. Watch their performance here:



Shankar Mahadevan was delighted to have students of the academy take centre-stage with him.
"The Academy's reach is growing and it feels great to be able to transfer the Joy of Music to the younger generation. At the Academy, we are trying each day to contribute to helping talented young children enjoy,create and learn music and I have to say that the future of Indian Music looks great."
The Grow With Music Program is now part of the music curriculum of many schools across India. More than 1500 plus students are currently part of this initiative. Nine of the students who participated in this event were from St. Gregorios School,Mumbai, a school enrolled with the Shankar Mahadevan Academy. We also had students who were enrolled in our offline and online Grow with Music Course performing at this event. The parents and teachers of these students were thrilled to see their young ones on stage at an event of this scale.

 Here are a few snippets from emails sent by ecstatic parents to SMA:
"When my son joined" SMA" in school I had no idea what he is going to learn, but when I saw him performing at NCPA, it was a big surprise for me that my son could sing GANANAAYAKA with such a confidence, it was an ecstatic moment for me.
Yesterday's event at the GIMA Awards was a mesmerizing moment for us parents, when we saw our kids on such a big and prestigious platform performing with their GURU. All thanks to Shankar Mahadevan Ji for starting this program for promoting music worldwide and uniting the whole world with music.Eagerly waiting for the next music session to start in Gregorios." - Gurpreet Dhami (mother of Samarvir Singh Dhami a student of SMA from St.Gregorios High School, Chembur)
"I fall short of words and know not how to express my sincere gratitude to the entire SMA academy, Shri Shankar Mahadevan, and the concerned teacher Mrs.Rohini Mahesh.  If I say that it was a memorable event, it would be very less.To share the stage space with the great Shri Shankar Mahadevan and that too when the kids are just beginning to feel the strings of music, is a blessing and one of its kind.

 It was a day that will be inked  in our memory bank permanently forever and ever and which will bring a smile on all our faces year after year. I hope to be associated and be a part of SMA for a long long time." said Mrs. Narayan (mother of Vedant Narayan, a student of SMA from St.Gregorios High School, Chembur) 

Rohini Mahesh, instructor at SMA who trained the children for the event had this to say: "GIMA 2015 was a special experience for me, to see our young Academy students (many of whom I tutor at St. Gregorios School in Mumbai, on our "Grow with Music" curriculum) perform with Shankarji on such a prestigious platform. Training them, on a 3 day fast track learning basis, for this event was an experience in itself,  that I shall always cherish." .

There is no age to start learning music. Music is a universal language that can communicate across all sorts of boundaries. We believe that taking the first steps towards learning music early will make a significant difference to the development of musical skills as well as life skills. For parents looking to give your child the gift of music, we have some great online music courses for children from ages 2 to 15.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Celebrating the music of Tyagaraj & Mirabai

Tyagaraja and Mirabai – Though born in different centuries, in different milieus, these great individuals devoted almost their entire lives to creating songs that are the ultimate expression of spirituality and devotion. Both Tyagaraja and Mirabai renounced every other wordly pleasure to create music for their “Lord”. Their untarnished and complete faith shines through in their compositions and have inspired generations of musicians as well as devotees around the world. Their compositions are an integral part of kutcheris, musical performances and competitions that feature Indian music. Their works have an ethereal quality and universal appeal which has resulted in   translations in many world languages.

Tyagaraja is one of the trio of exemplary composer-musicians of Carnatic music in the 18th century, known as the Trinity of Carnatic Music. He is revered as a highly influential figure who played a key role in the development of the Carnatic Music tradition. Tyagaraja’s 700 plus compositions, including the famous Pancharatna Kritis are an expression of his ardent devotion for Lord Rama. As a follower of the namasiddhanta tradition in which the repetitive recitation of the name of God is seen as a path to enlightenment, he is believed to have uttered Lord Rama’s name more than 960 million times during his life time. His unadulterated devotion is believed to have rewarded him with visions of his beloved God and his kritis are said to have been spontaneous creations in his ecstatic state.

Born a princess, Mira Bai relinquished the luxuries of her palace and her family to spend her time singing songs to her beloved Sri Krishna. Her single-minded devotion to the “Lord” and the power of her words and thoughts has resulted in gems of poetry that shine with the purest form of love. Her bhajans are immensely popular and have been translated into many Indian and world languages. Her volume of work includes more than 1,300 pads or poems. Her poetry wraps you with a special thrill and burns in you the lamp of spiritual fervour:

I am mad with love
And no one understands my plight.
Only the wounded
Understand the agonies of the wounded,
When the fire rages in the heart.
Only the jeweller knows the value of the jewel,
Not the one who lets it go.”


The Shankar Mahadevan Academy believes that these legends and their music have the power to communicate even to our generation and their musical compositions should be celebrated. The Hare Rame Hare Krishna Contest is an endeavor to reward exceptional talent that can carry on our musical traditions and lend new life to the musical treasures we have inherited. We are excited by the overwhelming response we are getting to this contest. Here are the prizes to inspire you a little more:

Winning Prizes:

The Grand Winner of the contest gets:

o  An opportunity to perform in SANGAM 2015, the annual global meet of the academy in front of Shankar Mahadevan and the audience
o Two free Instructor-led courses (6 months) of learning from the academy in either Carnatic or Hindustani worth 24.000 INR
o A certificate with Shankar’s Signature.

1st and 2nd runner up gets:
o Free entry to SANGAM 2015
o A self-study course from SMA, “HMS Super pack” worth 4500 INR
o A certificate with Shankar’s Signature

· Top 10 participants will get a certificate with Shankar’s signature



       For more details on the contest, visit http://www.shankarmahadevanacademy.com/contest/hrhk15/?htb=1


Friday, March 6, 2015

Hamaari Laadli - A Musical Ode to the Girl Child

Happy Holi everyone! We are celebrating Women's Day and ushering in Holi with the riotously colorful "Hamaari Laadli Laayi Bahaar" - a musical ode to the Girl Child; who through her presence ushers in the colours of Spring in our lives every day. The beautiful lyrics penned by Zainul Hassan Khan,Winner of the Girl Child 2014 Contest capture not only the many moods of Spring that a Girl Child brings into our hearts but also reminds us to give her the love and care she deserves. This Women's Day let us pledge to keep her hopes and dreams alive!

This video is the first of a series of initiatives by the Shankar Mahadevan Academy to spread the Joy of Music and use it to bring about social change. We are extremely happy that we have three wonderfully talented women we discovered through our contests performing in this video.
Breathing life into the lyrics with their melodious voices are Shirisha Chakraborty, Archita Bhattacharya and Deepti Namjoshi, who were thrilled to be realizing their own dreams of singing with the legendary Shankar Mahadevan.

Shirisha Chakraborty was the winner of the Voice of Storm Contest, 2014 while Archita Bhattacharya and  Deepti Namjoshi were winners of the Voice of HDFC and The Voice of L&T contests respectively.

The music for the song has been composed by Shankar Mahadevan and arranged by Siddharth Mahadevan and Soumil Shrirangpure.

We hope that you enjoy watching this as much as we did putting this together for you:

                                   Hamaari Laadli : A Shankar Mahadevan Academy Initiative



Happy Holi to all the women who add oodles of colour to our lives and to the men who celebrate them! This week, the Academy is giving a 15% discount to all women students who want to start their musical journey with SMA. Use coupon code WDAY15 on checkout to avail the offer on select courses*. Offer ends March 10.

*Discount Valid on Carnatic Vocal 01, Hindustani Vocal 01, HMS, Devotional Music, My Song and Grow With Music

Video Credits

Lyrics: Zainul Hassan Khan                                             Metering of Lyrics: Chitra Ranganathan Sharma 

Composed by: Shankar Mahadevan                               Arranged by: Siddharth Mahadevan & Soumil Shrirangpure


Song Recorded at: Audio Garage Studio, Juhu            Recording Engineer: Ameya Londhe


Cinematography: Utkarsh Marulkar                 Editor: Zameer Tamboli                Executive Producer: Nimish Joshi