The Music Academy Academic Sessions – 16 December 2025 to 1 January 2026

A few years ago, if someone had told me that I would listen to thirty lectures on Karnatik music in a fortnight, I would have labelled them crazy. Yet this year, I managed to do exactly that, and also write about them. The theme of this season, Dikshitar 250, definitely helped me persist.

I have listened to lecture demonstrations delivered outside the music season, and they are typically geared towards a general audience. The lecture series at The Music Academy, however, caters largely to musicologists, performing artists, and serious students of the art. Since I have not formally learnt music, the former category of lectures served as eye openers, revealing what lies beneath the surface of the compositions we casually listen to, and helping me appreciate them more deeply. Beyond the music itself, these lectures helped me notice the prosody, the wordplay, and the melodic nuances that composers have woven into their works. The latter category, however, has always been far beyond my immediate comprehension because of the depth and density of the material presented.

Over the past few years, I have selectively chosen topics that I felt I could relate to and possibly understand better and listened to those lectures. Last year, the topics and presenters formed a more eclectic mix. I had some familiarity with a few of them, while others captivated me completely. I took the opportunity to write about some of those lectures and realised that the act of writing itself significantly improved my understanding.

Despite not knowing Sanskrit, Dikshitar’s compositions have always fascinated me. I love their sheer sound, their rhythmic structure, the use of Prasa, and the way an astonishing amount of information is woven seamlessly into the music, often revealed only after someone explains it. To me, he is the greatest composer ever. Much to my disappointment, I could not be in India when his 250th birth anniversary was celebrated, and I wanted to do something meaningful to participate in those celebrations.

Thanks to The Music Academy’s practice of uploading lecture demonstrations on YouTube the very next day, and encouraged by my experience of writing about them last year, I decided that the best I could do was to listen to every lecture and summarize them based on my own understanding. I hoped that at least a few people at my level might find these summaries useful.

At the outset, I did not fully grasp the commitment this exercise would demand. There were two lectures on most days, and each lecture, including the question and answer session, lasted about ninety minutes. Simply listening to them once took nearly three hours. I often had to listen to sections multiple times to understand them better, take notes, and frame questions to discuss with others later. I frequently paused the lectures to look up unfamiliar terminology, read about the compositions being discussed, and explore related concepts. I find it easier to understand new ideas by comparing them with something I already know, so I often used Tamil grammar and astronomy as anchor points to grasp musical concepts. Finally, I had to write and edit every day so that I could publish one day’s summary before beginning the next.

Fortunately, this series coincided with the holiday season, and I was off work, which freed up my schedule considerably. We were on vacation, and several of these articles were written in airports, on Caribbean beaches, during car rides, and in hotel rooms. I must thank my family for their patience and for letting me carry my laptop along on a holiday. Over time, my enthusiasm rubbed off on them, and they too began listening to a few of the lectures. I should especially mention that my daughter has become a fan of Dikshitar’s genius and of K. Arun Prakash. She also helped me by drawing on her knowledge of Western music while I was trying to understand the lecture on Nottuswarams.

I must admit that as I continued writing and began receiving feedback, my confidence grew. My first post was about five hundred words long, while the piece on R. K. Shriram Kumar’s Kamalamba Navavarnams ran to nearly fifteen hundred words, which is one way I measure that progress. There were questions about why my write ups were uniformly positive and lacked critical commentary. I would like to clarify that I was only attempting to summarize my understanding of each lecture, not review or critique them. I simply do not have the expertise required to do that.

There are several people I would like to thank for their help and encouragement. K. Arun Prakash, despite his busy schedule, took the time to read some of the articles, offer feedback, suggest corrections, and share additional insights that were invaluable in deepening my understanding. Lalitha Ram consistently shared his feedback as well. I even troubled my dear friend Sangita Kalanidhi T. M. Krishna with questions on his lecture and he gave me a patient hearing. Sekar Ganesan, Neela Visweswaran, Hariharan Sankaran, Geetha Prakash, and Mani Prakash read almost all the articles and supported me with their comments.

I would also like to thank V. Sriram, Secretary of The Music Academy, for reading and sharing these articles, and for his words of encouragement. In particular, he mentioned one of my articles during a question and answer session, and referred to me by name. I was thrilled and deeply honoured. Thank you, Sriram. I apologise to friends and various WhatsApp groups for repeatedly sharing article links. I hope it was not too intrusive. My thanks also go to The Music Academy for editing and uploading the lectures so promptly. The decision to display slides in a zoomed in format made them much easier to read.

Congratulations to Dr. Sumithra Vasudev and Dr. Dhinesh Kumar for winning the Best Lecture Demonstration and Outstanding Lecture Demonstration awards respectively. Finally, heartfelt congratulations to R. K. Shriram Kumar on being conferred the Sangita Kalanidhi. It is a privilege to be counted among your friends. Your knowledge, humility, and calmness continue to be a source of inspiration for me.

Some Observations

• Almost every presenter ran out of time. It may be worth considering having one lecture a day instead of two, so that topics can be discussed in greater depth without constant time pressure.

• Given that the allotted time is forty five minutes, it would help if presenters restricted the scope of their talks accordingly, planned content for about forty minutes, and practiced their delivery with that constraint in mind.

• Rather than detailed salutations mentioning several individuals by name, a simple good morning could save a few minutes. The same applies at the end of a lecture, where a brief thank you would suffice.

• Some presentations were largely lectures, while others were primarily demonstrations. It would be good to have a healthy balance of both, so that concepts discussed in the lectures can be clearly understood through demonstrations, and demonstrations can be complemented by adequate contextual and scholarly explanation.

• Several lectures encountered technical issues. A standardized and fixed setup would help, along with a request for presenters to bring their material on a thumb drive or access it from a shared Google folder.

• Those asking questions could consider getting directly to their questions rather than prefacing them with extended praise. Every lecture was described as outstanding or excellent, and while the appreciation is understandable, repeating it at length during the question session is not necessary.

• Finally, Sriram was not as strict with presenters and audience members on time as he has been in the past. I missed the disciplinarian role that he usually plays, which has always helped keep the sessions focused and on schedule.