thiruvasakam in symphony

Any update on the Fan Club meeting? i googled / yahooed but didnt find anything

Here it is! With kind permission from Dr. Vijay of IIR fan club. A bit too long! Please enjoy!
Dear Friends,

First of all, let me apologize for being a day late in posting the
minutes of the First Meeting of `Friends for Good Music', which was
held at JD Hall in Loyola College, Chennai between 4 pm and 7 pm on
Sunday, March 20, 2005. The meeting was organized by Tamil Maiyam
(www.tamilmm.com) and Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilaiyaraaja). It was a refreshing
evening that we spent there, immersed in discussion on good music
and the need of it to be supported.

Though interested participants started coming right from 3 pm at
which time we were only getting the banners erected and planning the
events as JD Hall was not opened then, the real spirit of the
meeting lit up by 4:30 pm when the audience were prepared for the
start of the event and all arrangements had been made. Thanks to
forwarded emails, FM radios, coverage in web & press media, contacts
of Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj, the Founder of Tamil Maiyam, who has
integrated the whole project of `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja' and of
course, the members of our Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club, the
meeting recorded the presence of 72 attendees, including the
organizers.

The meeting started off with Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj narrating the
story behind `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja' – the idea, its motive,
birth, evolution and its growth to completion now. He mentioned that
good music in India has a tough time today due to the imprisonment
of music under the locks of cinema, audio piracy and lack of
initiative from the side of the audience to support good music. He
was happy that the sabhas are taking care of the well-being of our
classical Carnatic Music, which would not have stood today amidst
the fast world and globalization. He added further that we live in a
country where even a great music composer like Ilaiyaraaja had to
wait for two years to get a classical crossover project based on our
ancient devotional literature, `Thiruvasakam' recorded and released,
only because of lack of funds and due to the fear of the audio
companies about the commercial viability of the project, because of
the enormous growth of audio piracy and swaying away of the audience
from good music.

He mentioned that though they had somehow managed to complete the
recording of `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja' by means of public
donations and loans, they did not want to have only the commercial
success of the album in mind. Thiruvasakam, he said, was a test that
would take one so easily near God and was one of the best devotional
literatures he had ever read. Therefore, the motive of the project
was to remind the youth of the availability of such literary
treasures in our country and Ilaiyaraaja was quite strong in that
idea. He expressed that he was worried to think why our literary and
spiritual treasures were not known to foreign countries, though we
are well-informed about the literature from various nations of the
world. The reason for that was lack of our attempt to present them
to the western world in a form that they could understand, he felt.
Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj felt confident that `Thiruvasakam by
Ilaiyaraaja' would definitely fill the gap and make way for future
projects like `Thirukkural', `Thiruppaavai' and even non-devotional
literature which would not be featured in cine music. He was for a
starting a group that would encourage good mainstream music,
completely free from the clutches of cinema, that would bring in an
era where composers of good music need not have any difficulty in
crafting and marketing their creation. For that, he
wanted `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja' to be a success model as to
make a hopeful beginning. He made it clear that if a person of
Ilaiyaraaja's caliber is utilized for composing nothing more than
cine music, then it would be a great loss that we incur for the
coming generations of our country.

Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj thanked Mr K Pandia Rajan, Ma Foi
Management Consultants Ltd and Mr Gerald who were present at the
meeting, for having financially supported `Thiruvasakam by
Ilaiyaraaja' project during its critical final stages, without which
they would have really been stuck. He also thanked Maestro
Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club, founded and moderated by Dr J Vijay
Venkatraman, for its dedicated involvement in the project ever since
its inception. He thanked Ramji, Narasimman, Kothandaraman and all
the members of the club for helping him to organize the meeting at
Loyola College. He was very much grateful to everybody who was
supportive in the project and requested them to come forward to form
the core group for `Friends for Good Music', as `Maestro Ilaiyaraaja
Fans Club' is to `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja'.

Mr K Pandiarajan was full of enthusiasm and mentioned that good
music must have its day. He confidently declared that Rev Fr Jegath
Gaspar Raj's vision of a network of 50000 friends for good music
throughout the world within 5 years was an understatement and with
the power of the Internet and the mass media, such numbers could be
attained much easily. He motivated the group saying that everything
began from a small start and Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj remarked that
Pandia Rajan himself was an example for astounding growth in a short
span of time.

Mr Anandaraj, an IT Professional, spoke about the marketing pattern
that was to be followed for `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja', because
he feared that any compromise in it would make the project
unreachable to the masses. He volunteered that he could work for the
project's publicity in whatever way he could, as he had many friends
in the media.

Mr J Surendran and his wife Mrs A Sheela Mary, who are music
teachers and run a music school of their own, offered to get access
to all music schools in Chennai and to see to that each school buys
an original audio CD of `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja'. They also
announced that they would teach Maestro's compositions to their
students who come to learn music, as children's minds had to be
tamed to good music from the beginning itself so that they would
develop a good musical taste when they grow into adulthood.

Mr N Vignesh, a Mechanical Engineer, put forward a proposal of a
musical showdown by the alumni of TEKMUSIC (the music club of PSG
College of Technology) to which he belonged, as a ticketed programme
on a weekend in Chennai, consisting varieties of songs compose by
Maestro Ilaiyaraaja alone and the profits of which would go towards
the publicity and promotion of `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja.' He
further suggested that we could use paid downloadable formats of the
product in addition to thinking of sales of audio CD's and cassettes
alone. His friend, Mr S Aravind, talked about novel concepts of
marketing, supplementing Vignesh' ideas.

Mr S Athitha Nadarajan, an IT Professional, felt that `Thiruvasakam'
or `Tamil' would come to forefront by themselves and hence it was
more important to advertise `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja' as a great
musical composition rather than a devotional compilation or a
literary marvel. He suggested that we could advertise for the album
through a short promo during the interval timings in cinema houses
where popular films are shown.

Mr Nirmal Kumar Damodaran started his talk with an anecdote from his
experience of working in a call centre. They had been allowed to
listen to whatever CD's they wanted to listen while working and his
colleagues had always been playing only English pop songs. One fine
day, he got an opportunity to play Ilaiyaraaja's `How To Name It?'
and only a few of his colleagues found it interesting. The others
could not just understand the music. He pleaded with them and asked
for one more day, by the end of which everybody started appreciating
it and two youngsters born and brought up in Tamil Nadu asked him
who the composer of `How To Name It?' was. Nirmal felt very bad that
they had thought that Ilaiyaraaja was just a film music composer and
nothing above it. He stressed upon the fact that it was our duty to
explain to the world that we have a great composer among us
and `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja' should be successful for that, as
the first step. He assured his complete support for the
implementation of the same.

Mr A T Udayakumar, who runs a music troupe, assured to publicize the
project in his shows. Most of us might remember that Mr S
Kothandaraman from Vellore has already started doing it. Mr K S
Sasikumar, Newsreader in Jaya TV, was very happy that his friend
Gerald had brought him there and assured that he would take part
in `Friends for Good Music'. J T Muruganandham remembered his days
at college during the late seventies, which were enriched by
Ilaiyaraaja's early songs and he declared that he would get at least
ten audio CD's of `Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja' to distribute to his
friends and would buy even more after the sales. Mr Muthukumaran
suggested that we should achieve the target of making all our
members buy one CD each, at least and then, we could plan for an
online sales counter which would collect money from the buyers and
then send the original CD's by courier to their addresses.

Dr J Nandha, an ENT surgeon, made a reference to writer Sujatha's
column, `Katradhum Petradhum' in Ananda Vikatan, in which he had
mentioned that he would invite Ilaiyaraaja to take up the work of
the alwars too after the latter completes Thiruvasakam. Dr Nandha
mentioned that would be possible only if `Thiruvasakam by
Ilaiyaraaja' became a hit and for that he requested all the fans of
Ilaiyaraaja to take forward this album as their own. Mr Karthikeya
Sundaram, a Senior IT Professional, mentioned that even flower
markets needed advertisement today. He strongly felt
that `Thiruvasakam' was above all religions and not sticking to
Hinduism alone because apart from the ending word, `Sivane', the
meaning would hold good for Jesus Christ or Allah or any other deity
for that fact. In an age where chaos is the rule, a classical piece
of literature reflecting religious harmony by spreading the
word "God is One" would be the order of the day, he added and
promised support to the project through all possible means.

Mr A Clement, a Chartered Accountant, put forth his queries as to
whether the distribution of audio cassettes & CD's of `Thiruvasakam
by Ilaiyaraaja' could be carried out through churches. He also
assured that he could get some sponsors for the album and he was
already talking this through to Colgate. During his reply to Mr
Clement, Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj encouraged him to get presenting
sponsorship from multinational companies like the one Clement
mentioned, as that would virtually bring the financial load on Tamil
Maiyam to a minimum. Currently, the secular organization is paying
money in lakhs every month, as interest for the loans that it has
incurred for producing the album. He assured that most of the
churches and catholic organizations were in support of him in this
project and he mentioned that his bishop had really appreciated him
for doing this project, as inter-religious dialogue was one of the
duties of a catholic priest for maintaining religious harmony.
Therefore, there is no necessity for anybody to feel that way, he
added.

Then, I (Dr J Vijay Venkatraman) requested the microphone for a few
minutes to briefly reply to the queries of Muthukumaran and Vignesh,
apart from suggesting a few ideas. I replied that most of the
members of Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club would buy at least one CD
each, as they have promised to do so. The remainder is not sure
whether the CD's will be available in their country, as our club has
no geographical limits. But, I said I believed the CD's would reach
all countries throughout the world. Regarding online sales, I
pointed out that Project GEM (http://project-gem.tripod.com) had
already been successful in selling CD's of Ilaiyaraaja's
compositions through the Internet to members of our club. There were
also websites like www.maebag.com where one could order many
original Malayalam CD's online and get them delivered at home.
Hence, I mentioned that we could set up a similar counter in Tamil
Maiyam for the same and use Tamil Maiyam's website itself for
collection of orders.

I further suggested that `Friends for Good Music' could be formed as
a separate Yahoo Group by Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj himself and some
other dignitary like Mr K Pandia Rajan. Volunteers willing to work
as moderators under Father's directions could do the execution part
of the work, while Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj sets the concepts, I
added. Regarding the launch function, we could plan it as a grand
ticketed one and the buyer would get entry for the function, the
original audio CD, the DVD of `The Making of Thiruvasakam By
Ilaiyaraaja' and a couple of books written by Ilaiyaraaja, I
suggested and it was well-received. I suggested to Vignesh that we
might allow only paid listening to the tracks online and would not
allow them to be downloaded as any end user may be able to copy it
in a CD. But Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj felt that online listening in
bits and pieces would not hold good for the professional level that
the product was conceived and executed at. Finally, we sorted out
some other issues and came to the following conclusions:

1.To support good music, all of us will buy only original CD's and
cassettes for listening to music. We will not buy any pirated format
or download music through the Internet. We will not forward to
anybody, any non-original means of listening to music online and not
use them even if they reach us too.

2.All of us will start spreading the message above to all our
contacts. We will buy and make sure that all our contacts
get `Thiruvasakam By Ilaiyaraaja' in its original form.

3.We will form a core group for `Friends For Good Music' and will
meet often to promote good music.

4.From now on, the meeting of all the members of `Friends For Good
Music' will be held once in two months at Santhome Communications
Centre, 150, Luz Church Road, Mylapore, Chennai – 600 004,
preferably on a Sunday. It will be a two-hour meet and while the
first hour would be full of discussion, the second would be full of
musical performances.

5.The group will communicate through a Yahoo Group that will be a
different one from Ilaiyaraaja Yahoo Group. It will be under the
control of Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj and some of our volunteers will
be its moderators, working under the principles and plans of Rev Fr
Jegath Gasper Raj and whoever else he suggests.
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ffgm - the group has been created,
but it has not been announced formally till now. Members are welcome
to join by sending a blank mail to ffgm-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
In the meantime, I will ask Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj to join, so
that I can make him the group owner and step down to the level of a
member, as moderation of Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club itself is
enough work for me. I hope all of you will understand me.)

6.In addition to the existing list of volunteers from Maestro
Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club for field work in the marketing
of `Thiruvasakam By Ilaiyaraaja', some of the attendees of the
meeting were ready to join the same. They will join Maestro
Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilaiyaraaja) by
sending a blank mail to ilaiyaraaja-subscribe@yahoogroups.com as
soon as possible and send a mail to the club stating that they want
to join as a volunteer, following which they will be added in our
database of volunteers and will be requested to work as a team with
us then and there, depending on the need and the location of the
member. People residing abroad can also volunteer.

Finally, it was time for the end as the hall was rented only till 7
pm. In the meanwhile, we had `Oorusanam Thoongiruchu' song recited
by Mrs P Nandhini, an IT Professional, for a break. Her mellifluous
singing brought everyone to their best spirit and people started
accompanying her song by humming, following Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar
Raj! Mrs S Aloysius, mother of Mr A Clement, was another singer of
the day. She surprised all of us by a Carnatic Recital in Simmendhra
Madhyamam raaga on Jesus Christ! It was nice to see that music could
easily take over religion and needless to say, she did it perfectly!

There was another singer in the gathering. He sang many songs which
the audience had never heard, but are waiting with lots of patience
in full musical appetite (as rightly pointed out by Mr Karthikeya
Sundaram)! Can you guess? Yes – it was Rev Fr Jegath Gasper Raj and
the songs he sang were the ones composed and rendered by Maestro
Ilaiyaraaja for `Thiruvasakam By Ilaiyaraaja'! For every song, the
crowd came up with thunderous claps and we only needed more and more
of it! But not taking any credit, Father said, "Wait to get the full
product, with 90 violins and lots of other instruments to support
the voice track because that is where Ilaiyaraaja's uniqueness comes
in play – when the vocal part can reach the masses, the
accompaniment alone can be played without the lyrics, as a separate
symphony for the western world to enjoy!"

Thus, the three hours passed in a jiffy leaving us the least bit
tired but more optimistic and hopeful about the future of good music!

Let us all strive for originality and meaning in music to reign!

Yours Always Musically,
Dr J Vijay Venkatraman.

Founder & Moderator, Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilaiyaraaja





'Maestro Ilaiyaraaja' - Let All The Elements Say His Name!

Thanks for the details Dr.

Went through your postings in details. I am little upset that only 72 people turned up for this meeting, but anyways its just the beginning.

This product has to be distributed across the globe. I am again not sure who is releasing the CDs, but if its under Saregama/HMV banner or under Sony banner, you have a better reach, but if its by any one else, your chances are very less. Another option is to market this product thru Ayngaran group of companies

If its not Saregama/HMV please send me a PM. I will give you the details of some CD distributors, and I will atleast ask one of them to market this product to their best.

In addition, we will also start our ad in our site and our friendly site.

Thanks

Dear TISK,
Happy to be a part of friends of good music. Is there an idea of hosting similar meetings in Bangalore too? I work in Bangalore and it will be difficult for me to regularly attend the meetings in chennai. I bet that there will be equally good number of Thamizh music in Bangalore too. Anyways, Congrats to a successful launch of new initiative to spread good music and culture.

Any updates on the TIS release schedule? March is coming to an end. Will I get my cd's on April'14th?

April 14th is just a week away - is TIS releasing at all ??

So far no announcements from the TIS team, is it getting released on 14'th April ?

I THINK IT WILL DEFINITELY BE RELEASED ON 14 APRIL

Dear all,
Here is a message from Dr. Vijay Venkatraman who is helping Fr.Jegath in India as appeared in his IIR group. Hope this gives you the needed answers.
Let me also add that IIR sent the masters back to Sony for some more minor corrctions before giving it for copying which, of course, cost us an additional 2K [!!] which has been taken care of and the masters are in the hands of the Maestro and Fr.Jegath by last Monday and that also contributed to the slightly revised schedule! Anyway, by God's grace, all this team could do have been done and now it is upto the Big Powers to get it out asap to the entire satisfaction of the Fans and alikes. The hurdles we faced and the problems we overcame is a saga which I would definitely share with you all one day! Thank you for your patience but let me assure you all that it will be worth your wait-- both the Cd and my story!! :-) YIA!!
And now, here is the mail from Dr.Vijay V::

""Dear Friends,

Here is the most recent and confirmed news on the release
of 'Thiruvasakam By Ilaiyaraaja' from Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj:

The original CD of 'Thiruvasakam By Ilaiyaraaja' will be handed over
to the Prime Minister and the President of India on April 14, 2005.

The original CD's and cassettes will be available in all audio
outlets across the country from May 7, 2005.

I hope this news clears doubts of many people. Let us strive to make
this album a grand success!

Yours Always Musically,
Vijay.""