Archiving musical heritage

The ‘TAG-Saptaparni Digital Listening Archives’ inaugurated recently is a music library that stores over 1,000 hours of Carnatic music, made easily accessible to the public. The software helps locate specific composers or ragas, in just 10 seconds

It was a small gathering of music connoisseurs and sabha-heads that had gathered at Saptaparni Cultural Centre. The event, however, was one of big significance. The TAG-Saptaparni Digital Listening Archives were inaugurated by the Governor of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, ESL Narasimhan. The occasion was presided over by KV Ramanachari, Advisor, Cultural Affairs, Telangana.

Sharing the stage were the two persons behind these archives, G Anuradha Prasad of Dr Reddy’s Foundation who runs Saptaparni, and RT Chari, Managing Director, TAG Group, a music lover and creator of the TAG Digital Listening Archives.

The event began with an invocatory song by classical vocalist Sattiraju Venumadhav while Rajani Vakkalanka anchored the event. The Governor, RT Chari and KV Ramanchari all expressed happiness that such a valuable resource for classical music had been created in Hyderabad.

Simply titled ‘The TAG-Saptaparni Digital Listening Archives’, this is a storehouse of over 1,000 hours of Carnatic music. It will keep growing with the addition of more records on a regular basis. Special software has been employed whereby a user can search for and locate a particular song by a particular artist, of a chosen composer and in any raga that he or she wants, all in 10 seconds!

These archives are a natural culmination of Anuradha Prasad’s efforts to promote the arts though Saptaparni. The idea of archiving good, artistic works took root when Telugu musician Palagummi Viswanatham gave away his music records and books to Saptaparni and Anuradha herself began archiving concerts happening at this centre.

Over time, the project grew bigger. And last weekend, this music library was born. RT Chari, who gathers and archives classical music and provides it to various institutions, says, “The love and appreciation for music has changed my life completely.”

Over 30 years, he has collected about 6,000 hours of recordings of Carnatic music concerts. In order to preserve them for posterity, he then digitised, edited and indexed these records. In 2008, he established the TAG Digital Listening Archive of Madras Music Academy in Chennai. The idea received much appreciation and soon Chari helped set up 13 more archives altogether in India and abroad, with the 15th one at Saptaparni.

Anuradha says, “The aim of this archive is to make a wide range of high-quality classical music available to music lovers. We hope to add Telugu light music too in future.” Currently, Hyderabad does have a few classical music archives especially in educational institutions, but none are easily accessible to the public. This is a happy democratisation of our cultural heritage!