The response to our readers survey has been heartening. A big thank you to our extended Sruti parivar for the trouble many of them have taken to fill in our questionnaire and offer thoughtful suggestions. We are still some way from reading all the responses and analysing the feedback, but a preliminary inspection of the material received reveals a general eagerness to improve music and dance related knowledge. In music, we have been very well served in this department by the venerable musician-artist-musicologist S. Rajam, our Contributing Editor. We are also trying to persuade some of our younger experts to contribute regular columns and hope to offer illuminating fare to slake the thirst of knowledge seekers in these fields. The only reason we haven’t already started such a column is that the people best equipped to deal in sangeeta gyanamu are also the busiest performers and teachers. Yet a number of the more articulate musicians and dancers have assured us support in starting and sustaining such a series, and we should soon be launching it.

Rajam Sir has added yet another feather to his cap. He has created a wonderful calendar depicting the 72 melakarta raga-s for the engineering major L&T. We in Sruti know that Rajam is a young man in an old man’s body, his creativity surging unabated in his eighties. The calendar was released in a fitting manner on Tamil New Year’s Day.

Another of Sruti’s Contributing Editors, Sushil Kumar Saxena, has done us proud by being elected a Fellow of the Sangeet Natak Akademi — “for his dedicated service to India’s music and dance over a lifetime as a philosopher and writer.” Earlier this year, Saxena was awarded the Padma Bhushan. We are thrilled for this unassuming veteran whose high quality writing enhances magazine journalism with its elegance.

A major event in the Carnatic music diaspora is the annual Tyagaraja Aradhana at Cleveland, Ohio. Catching up in importance are similar events around the world on the bard of Tiruvaiyaru. The Classical Arts Society, Houston, Texas, has over the last couple of years added a new dimension to its homage to Tyagaraja, by installing a leading musician as the artistic director of the festival, starting with N. Ravikiran. This year, it was T.M. Krishna. Watch our pages for more on the subject..