The noted vocalists and scholars of Indian classical as well as Carnatic music, on the inaugural day of a national seminar on ‘Past, present and future of Indian classical music’, held at Ramnathi, Ponda, observed that the back seat taken by All India Radio, in the age of television channels, had done a great harm to the singers and instrumentalists of both streams of classical music of the country.

“The All India Radio had played an important role in giving exposure to these masters as well as the rising artists by providing them with an effective platform through its national programmes of music,” the experts added, while expressing concern over the situation. The two-day seminar was organised by the Samraat Sangeet Academy.

Earlier, the chairman of the Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata, Mr Amit Mukherjee inaugurated the event. Mr Mukherjee, in his inaugural address stressed on the dedication of an artist towards music for attaining expertise in the field. He also appealed to the Samraat Sangeet Academy to select a couple of students of music and train them in the field, further offering every possible help from the Sangeet Research Academy.

The later session saw the noted vocalists of Indian classical music namely, Pt Prabhudev Sardar and Dr Alka Deo Marulkar speaking on ‘Indian classical music, today’ and ‘Indian classical music, tomorrow’, respectively.

The other session of the day witnessed lectures on ‘Reference Carnatic Music’ by Prof N Ramanathan and on ‘Folk music literature’ by Goan folk researcher, Mr Vinayak Khedekar.