Oscar-winning music director A.R. Rahman on Monday (December 15, 2025) said one of the challenges today was how to bring in younger audiences to concert halls to enjoy classical music.<\/p>\n
Mr. Rahman, who inaugurated the 99th annual music conference and concerts of the Music Academy in Chennai, said he had expected to see many young people in the audience, but found most were of his own age group.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we get them in? This has been my task for the last 10 years. I have been working on script ideas, how to make a movie, and all kinds of crazy ideas I have not told anyone about,\u201d said Mr. Rahman, who presented the M.S. Subbulakshmi Award and the cash prize instituted by The Hindu<\/i> to violinist R.K. Shriramkumar, the Sangita Kalanidhi designate for 2025.<\/p>\n \n N. Murali, president welcomes Music Maestro A.R. Rahman at inauguration of the 99th Annual Conference and Concerts in Chennai on December 15, 2025. <\/div>\n Mr. Rahman said music had to travel around the world and be experienced in a way that enthralled and immersed audiences. \u201cIt is not just the performer or the mastery of singing, but also the hall and the way spaces are designed so that people can enjoy music in a much better way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Pointing out people today were constantly \u201cseduced by social media\u201d, artificial intelligence, and many other unbelievable influences \u2014 both good and bad \u2014 the music director said all of this could happen on a screen.<\/p>\n \u201cBut can you sing with the tambura in tune and hold an audience for three hours? That is the question. At the same time, how can we expand the experience? The human experience is irreplaceable. Performing arts have a major role to play and must be reinvented again and again to bring in audiences, generate an economy, and instil pride in our traditions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Rahman added that while the creation of music was one aspect, marketing it in a way that allowed the world to enjoy it was equally important.<\/p>\n \u201cMy musical experience is that I learnt from everyone. I do not draw borders between traditions. I appreciate and respect tradition. Everything comes from bhakti, from devotion \u2014 whether it is Sufi music, Carnatic music, Hindustani music, or gospel music. Everything comes from surrendering to tradition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Describing himself as an \u201coutlaw\u201d as a musician, Mr. Rahman said, \u201cI learnt music, but moved away from tradition to rediscover it, so that I gained the freedom to innovate and collaborate, and the freedom not to feel guilty about breaking rules. I have discovered more beauty as I grow older, and now we face a serious challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Shriramkumar recalled his first concert at the Music Academy, for which he had borrowed both his instrument and his attire. \u201cFrom then on, my performances at the Academy have been an unbroken sequence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He noted Carnatic music as a genre was characterised by its unique soundscape, gamaka structures, compositional masterpieces, and rhythmic intricacies. \u201cIt is of paramount importance that this beautiful soundscape is never sacrificed in performance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n N. Murali, president of the Music Academy, said Mr. Rahman had incorporated multiple classical elements from both the Carnatic and Hindustani streams.<\/p>\n \n N. Murali, president, and members of the Executive Committee of the Music Academy, presents memento to Music Maestro A.R. Rahman, at the inauguration of the 99th Annual Conference and Concerts of the Music Academy in Chennai on December 15, 2025. <\/div>\n Quoting Australian director Baz Luhrmann \u2014 \u201cthe more of AR\u2019s music I encountered, the more I was amazed at the sheer diversity of styles, from swinging brass bands to triumphant anthems, from joyous pop to West End musical\u201d \u2014 Mr. Murali said Mr. Rahman \u201cremains a man of humility and an ambassador of our wonderful city\u201d.<\/p>\n Mr. Murali added a new, world-class, top-of-the-line audio and acoustics system from the leading international brand L-Acoustics of France had been commissioned at the Academy in June 2025.<\/p>\n Sangita Kalanidhis T.M. Krishna and Bombay Jayashree were present. R. Srinivasan, vice-president of the Academy, proposed a vote of thanks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published – December 15, 2025 09:29 pm IST<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.thehindu.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oscar-winning music director A.R. Rahman on Monday (December 15, 2025) said one of the challenges today was how to bring in younger audiences to concert halls to enjoy classical music. Mr. Rahman, who inaugurated the 99th annual music conference and concerts of the Music Academy in Chennai, said he had expected to see many young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2201811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[425079,425086,425080,425081,425083,425084,425087,425085,425082],"class_list":["post-2201810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-chennai-margazhi-season","tag-m-s-subbulakshmi-award-to-r-k-shriramkumar","tag-margazhi-season","tag-music-academy-awards","tag-music-academys-99th-annual-conference-and-concerts","tag-music-maestro-a-r-rahman","tag-rahman-presents-sangita-kalanidhi-award-to-shriramkumar","tag-sangita-kalanidhi","tag-sangita-kalanidhi-award-at-music-academy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Attracting-younger-audiences-to-classical-music-concerts-is-a-challenge.JPG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2201810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201812,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201810\/revisions\/2201812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2201811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2201810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2201810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2201810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"N.](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/fhgdvn\/article70400162.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/BVR_6459.JPG\" "\\"N.")
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\n | Photo Credit:
\n B. Velankanni Raj\n <\/p>\n\u2018Human experience\u2019 <\/h4>\n
\u2018Man of humility\u2019<\/h4>\n
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\n | Photo Credit:
\n B. Velankanni Raj\n <\/p>\n