![]() Efforts are underway to expand this program so that it has a far wider reach. Since the onset of the pandemic, though, all classes are conducted online, through phones and tablets that the Academy provides children with. Initially, the IIP ran three centres in Mumbai and one in Bangalore. ![]() ![]() If you walk into an IIP class, you could see any of these surprising sights: a visually challenged girl (Deeksha) confidently playing the piano, or housewives absorbed in playing the piano, or students of a government school in West India singing songs in French, Russian and Tamil! Deeksha’s teacher Chinmay devised a novel way of transacting the music lesson with her: instead of sharing the notation of the composition, which requires vision, (he recited the notation and she followed it as she heard him. A student can select any two of the courses offered, and thus engage with SMA for two full terms. The intention is not to churn out music professionals, but to get participants to experience the joy of performing after learning some music. Targeting school students as well as Senior Citizens, this program offers twelve-week-long courses, each of which culminates in a performance. The Academy raises funds to pay related teacher and technology expenses. A donation of Rs 3500 helps the academy schedule classes for an entire year. Underprivileged students are offered the same programs that their more fortunate fraternity get to access – but at an extremely nominal annual fee of Rs 500/- per course. ![]() It was time, SMA felt, to ensure that these precious art forms do not go extinct.įamilies with a yellow or orange ration card can learn at Inspire India Centres for a nominal fee. Well, this idea came from two diagonally opposite scenarios: Classical Music was held captive by specific castes and subcastes, and Bollywood music has gained such strengths that it overshadows all other forms of beautiful Indian music - which exist in many forms outside Bollywood. ‘Now why would they want that?’ you may well ask. SMA’s Inspire India Project (IIP) aspires to make music a topic of household conversation at every home in the community. Well, Shankar Mahadevan Academy (SMA) strives to bring a certain topic into your household conversations – and yes, you guessed it right! Music! There isn’t any ONE attention puller, mostly. What are your most frequent topics of conversation at home? When you sit together as a family for a meal, what – if anything – tends to draw in everyone’s attention, during a discussion? Chances are that it tends to vary. In a similar way, could music bring people together? This was the question in the mind of the CEO and Founder of SMA, Sridhar Ranganathan.Īnd thus was born the IIP program of SMA. ![]() Bringing communities together, it enables people to mingle and share their joy – with little focus (if any) on each individual’s socio-economic status. Instead, it is an occasion for residents of villages, apartment complexes and cities to gather together and celebrate the advent of the much-loved elephant God. This is an event which does not call for buying expensive gifts or performing elaborate practices at home. If there is one festival in India which spreads joy among the masses, regardless of their economic status, it must be the Ganesha festival. While the goal (as always) is to create a social impact, this program serves to do this by inculcating values in the masses – through music. So, music lessons should go everywhere.” Like so many other social programs of his Academy, the intent of the Inspire India Project (IIP), too, is inclusive and all-encompassing. Shankar Mahadevan declares: “Talent can be born anywhere. ![]()
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