The cover feature focusses on Two Stalwarts Of Indian Music, namely Ramanathapuram Sankarasiva Bhagavatar and Pandit Sharadchandra Arolkar, highly respected figures both (25-30). Additional articles on The North-South Musical Divide in Indian art music constitute the other special feature (31-36). The article on The Beijing Opera (37-39) completes the three-part series on the music of China which we started earlier this year. We had already initiated work on a special feature on Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur in the hope of publishing it during his life time but that pleasure has been denied us. The obituary article on him in this issue thus precedes the special feature (21-22).

For dance enthusiasts, we offer- besides a report on a Mysore confest which includes the gist of valuable advice from veteran observers- two articles which should be treated as most valuable 'advisories'. I refer to the articles captioned Dance & The Media (41-42) and Why Dancers Fail In Abhinaya (42-43). I invite the attention of dance enthusiasts to two other articles: a comment on the challenge a dancer faces when she decides to present a performance based on the songs of a single composer (14), and the obituary article on Kamadev (23-24).

The cover sketches of Sankarasiva Bhagavatar and Pandit Sharadchandra Arolkar are by D. Narendran who has deservedly been paid high tribute by a veteran Canadian artist.