CMS Academy lecturer participated in the International Musicology Conference (IFYM, 2010) held at Yokohama, Japan

New Delhi: CMS Academy lecturer and academic coordinatior Ms Shrinkhla Sahai participated in the International Musicology Conference (IFYM, 2010) held at Yokohama, Japan recently. She was among the 57 participants who attended the Forum in addition to the 20 invited, young and promising scholars from across Asia, including Japan, Europe and America.

Ms Sahai, a Phd scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University gave a presentation on “Excavating Tradition: Classicism and Modernity in the ‘Gharana’ system of Hindustani Music. Her paper focused on the question of continuity and change within the Hindustani classical music system, the claim to authenticity as a basic premise for establishing the concept of and the breaking down of the gharana system in the post-modern world. She said, “Classical music pedagogy in India follows the oral transmission of music knowledge within a gharana. The authenticity and classicism in a musician‘s style is substantiated through his claim to the musical lineage of the gharana. In the early part of the twentieth century, when these gharanas emerged, music knowledge was passed on only within the family or to gandabandh shagirds ’ (a thread-tying ceremony in which the Guru accepted a person as his disciple). This practice effectively thrived on a politics of exclusion, operating out of the socio-cultural hierarchy and reinforcing it by allowing selective access to knowledge and prohibiting outsiders from learning a particular style (of the gharana) of music. This practice also aimed at preserving the uniqueness and distinguishing quality of a gharana.”

She further elaborated that it is significant that the concept of gharanas emerged at the turn of the twentieth century and the whole emphasis on gharana as an authentic lineage of classical music, which claims its purity by aligning itself to tradition, is itself a modern phenomena. The classical styles of Hindustani music are therefore ‗neo-classical.

International Musicology Conference (IFYM, 2010)

International Forum for Young Musicologists 2010 was organized by The Musicological Society of Japan from May 14-17, 2010, in Yokohama. It began with kind messages from Prof. Tadashi Isoyama, President of the MSJ, and Prof. Tilman Seebass, President of the IMS, who spoke over the SKYPE. 57 participants attended the Forum in addition to the 20 invited, young and promising scholars from across Asia, including Japan, Europe, and America.

CMS Academy of Communication & Convergence Studies

CMS Academy of Communication & Convergence Studies is a communication school aimed at developing communication and media leaders through excellence in education and research. The Academy is a uniquely designed, research driven, practically relevant and futuristically oriented educational institute. CMS Academy is an initiative of Centre for Media Studies (CMS), a multi-disciplinary research organization in the country. CMS Academy is associated with over 160 reputed national and international organizations through its 20 years experience of research, strategic planning and managing of over 500 projects. With campuses in NOIDA (UP) and Saket, Delhi, it provides a world class infrastructure that includes media lab, prototype lab, research library, audio visual resource centre, etc.