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.