December Music Season: The great survivor

Despite changing technology, audience tastes, performing venues and more, Chennai’s December Season remains the country’s most significant cultural event

The December Music Season is one of the great cultural survivors of our time. It has been written off repeatedly and yet it has gone on. When it began, it was just a handful of sabhas with around 20,000 followers at most. Survival at that level is more or less assured since the attrition of patrons is made up by new arrivals. What is important is that it has survived even after growing exponentially — a cultural statement of commitment by artistes, organisers, patrons and sponsors.

The Season’s history is also a story of evolution — of changes in technology, audience tastes, performing venues, and much more. It began at a time when concerts were still held in open-air venues — the 1927 All India Music Conference was held in tents at Congress Nagar, an impressive name for a makeshift location on the dry bed of the Spur Tank in Chetpet. There was no amplification then, but ambient noise levels were practically non-existent. After all, that was a time when Jagannatha Bhakta Sabha, operating from the verandah of a house, was the city’s premier music organisation. Rasika Ranjani, with its new-fangled notions of chairs, proscenium arch, and balcony seats was still two years away.