Pulling the right strings

The secret of its survival lies in the circumstances of its birth. It was pushed into existence by the ITC group in 1977 which told the Padmabhushan vocalist Pandit C R Vyas to hold a music festival without worrying about the publicity costs. It was done under the banner of the Maharashtra Lalit Kala Nidhi Trust which has been organising the festival ever since. During the first festival, C R Vyas placed the responsibility on his 23-year-old son, Satish. Today, a professional santoor player, Satish then had a masters degree in statistics, an MBA from the Bombay University and was working as a PR executive with Phillips. He got on to the task of organising the festival with complete gung-ho. Netting onto his contacts in the corporate world and marketing skills, he managed to raise Rs 60,000 through a brochure which covered most of the expenses.

Since then, there has been no looking back and this is the Sammelan8217;s 21st year. Although it was restricted to Mumbai for many years, the scope of the festival was widened in 1991, when Satish took it to Delhi. By 1993 it had become a part of Calcutta8217;s cultural diary and in 1995, Bangalore came on its itinerary.

It started off as a five-day event but now has been cut short to three days to keep the costs down. And different artists perform in different cities through the festival. Earlier, the Sammelan would open with young artists, go on to a reasonably well known name and then have an acclaimed performer as the climax of the festival. quot;We found that people would start coming in only during the second half,quot; says Satish. So during the mid 80s, younger artists were dropped from the festival and from 1986, another annual event was organised, specially for them, in collaboration with the NCPA. For the last two years, however, this event hasn8217;t been on the agenda for various reasons.

Although there are six trustees on the board and seven to eight volunteers who pitch in with their efforts, the burden of organising the Sammelan falls on Satish, quot;Music management today is a big industry on its own and you have to work at it like any other product,quot; he says. The festival was born out of a corporate interest in classical music. But the fact that it has grown enough to continue appealing to sponsors, says a lot about the manner in which it has been managed. Satish has established the festival as a distinct national brand over the last two decades and that requires a business acumen that would hardly be associated with a world class musician.

In 1988, Citibank took over from ITC and has been supporting the festival ever since. Says Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma who will be performing at the festival, quot;This festival features the best artists and the quality of the presentation is very high. And I think Citibank should be applauded for not insisting on diluting this quality with trite gimmicks.quot; While Satish is reluctant to discuss the financial modalities, he does reveal that the artists8217; costs for all the four cities adds up to Rs 10 lakh, quot;Though most of them give us a discount, the fees are quite high anyway.quot; But the burden of recovering costs is hardly on the audience 8212; season tickets for the three day festival are priced only between Rs 100 to Rs 300.

Satish finally gave up the corporate world in 1990 when he quit Venkateshwara Hatcheries to devote all his time to his riyaz and then those four crazy winter months for the festival. quot;Now I don8217;t have the energy to go around selling ads for a festival brochure, so I have stopped that,quot; he sighs. And though he says organising the Sammelan is a thankless job, it still excites him enough to announce the dates for the next year on the last evening on the festival each time, thus ensuring that the show goes on.