From the Tanjore Court to the Madras Music Academy

This book traces the adaptation of the traditional music in south India to the necessities of colonial and post-colonial social realities. The cultivation of classical music and the music of the Tanjore Trinity in particular, emerged as a central element in the articulation, nourishment and defence of a collective cultural persona by the Tamil Brahmin community in the face of the atomising threat of modernity. This project coincided with the growth of nationalist political agendas and traditional music was enlisted in the service of the freedom movement as an emblem of India s unique and independent authenticity. Classical music, in moving from the quiet courtyards of Tanjore to the concert halls of Madras, acquired a systematic re-ordering internally and externally that has empowered it to survive and thrive in the eccentric contemporary world.