Attendance in concerts of Senior Music Vidwans

[basumani]

I am attending the music season and concerts at various sabhas for quite some time. I observe that there is an increasing and visible trend of decline in attendance to the concerts of very senior music artists who are still very good , whilst there is quite a bit of crowd for some of the recently come up young artists. In One of the sabhas, the recent upcoming artists have been given 4.30 PM slots and some of the senior vidwans are being given 7. 30 PM concerts. There is full house for the 4.30 sessions and very less attandance for the 7.30 sessions when very senior vidwans perform. Even those people melt away as the concert progress. It is really very sad that the rasikas do not respect the contribution of the senior vidwans. What is intriguing is that there is more crowd in the canteen compared to inside the auditorium. I am seeing even the secretaries and sabha committee members do not attend the concerts of these senior artists and I have found them chitchatting outside and in the canteen. I am not against people attending the new comers' concerrts , but atleast let us not show disrespect to the senior artists who have still not lost their vidwat. In foreign countries nobody leaves the auditorium before the concert ends. They stay till the end of the concert and leave only after applauding at the end of the concert.But here in Chennai, we show least respect to the performers. One can easily see many people going away when Thani aavarthanam starts. This is not only insuting to the Thani aavarthanam artists, but shows the indifferrence of the Rasikas.

[arasi]

While I agree with you that we should attend as many concerts as possible of senior musicians, in the two weeks that I stayed in Chennai for the season, I saw another picture. I tried to go to as many concerts as possible of veterans and saw with my own eyes that the halls were quite filled (while it was not so with some of the younger musicians). Those golden (old) performers like Nedunuri, R.K.Srikantan, T. Sankara Iyer, Parasalai Ponnammal, Jayalakshmi Santhanam and others sang to nearly filled halls. I get the feeling that some of the young listeners come there with deep interest in listening to their music before such valuable vidvAns cease performing...

[chalanata]

I am attending the music season and concerts at various sabhas for quite some time. I observe that there is an increasing and visible trend of decline in attendance to the concerts of very senior music artists who are still very good , whilst there is quite a bit of crowd for some of the recently come up young artists. In One of the sabhas, the recent upcoming artists have been given 4.30 PM slots and some of the senior vidwans are being given 7. 30 PM concerts. There is full house for the 4.30 sessions and very less attandance for the 7.30 sessions when very senior vidwans perform.

the rasikas had actually listened to the senior vidwans years ago when they were in the 4.30 slot. we will have to blame only the sabhas giving the oppurtunity at the time of super annuation of the senior vidwans!