Auckland

The New Zealand Carnatic Music Society (NZCMS) was registered in September 1999, the first and only one of its kind in New Zealand. The main aim of the Society is to propagate and encourage Carnatic music in New Zealand. Towards this end, the Society has organised and conducted many programs which are highlighted below:

‘Thyagaraja Aradhana’, a homage to the Saint composer, takes place in March/April every year when the Pancharatna kritis are sung in a group by local senior artistes with appropriate accompaniments. Thyagaraja’s other lilting kritis are also sung during this Aradhana by artistes of all ages both individually and in groups. Harihara Dasa, Muthuswamy Dikshitar and other Composers are commemorated during the year when songs of these composers are rendered by young and old alike.

During ‘monthly musical evenings’ the members and the public are given an opportunity to listen to local talent. Senior artistes usually perform for about 40 minutes and young students of Carnatic music sing the compositions that they have learnt from their teachers in New Zealand. Fund raising programs that have been conducted by the society are ‘Amrithavarshini’, ‘Nrityanjali’ and ‘Swararagasudha’. Nrityanjali brought Carnatic songs specifically composed for dance to the fore and ‘Swararagasudha’ had many youngsters singing popular cinema songs in Carnatic ragas. The society also runs the innovative quiz cum anthakshari programme, ‘Sangeetha Rasa Manjari’ which has certainly attracted the younger generation.

NZCMS organises a minimum of two concerts every year by professional musicians from India. The concerts that NZCMS has organised to date are Ravi Kiran (chitraveena), Sudha Raghunathan, Raj Kumar Bharathi, O.S. Tyagarajan, Maharajapuram Ramachandran, S.P.Ramh, Aruna Sayeeram, Vijayalakshmi Subramaniam, Malladi Brothers, Dr M Balamurali Krishna, S Sowmya, T N Seshagopalan, Sanjay Subrahmanyan (all vocal), Flute Tyagarajan, Lalgudi G.J.R. Krishnan and Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi (violin) , Lalgudi Srimathi Brahmanandam and Anuradha Sridhar  (violin), Kadri Gopalnath (saxophone) and A Kanyakumari (violin), ‘Ghatam’ Karthick’s Heartbeat (ensemble).

NZCMS endeavours to promote local artistes who have contributed to the growth of the Carnatic Music Society. We had special concerts from Prof.Rajalakshmi Thirunarayanan and Meera Raghu (both veena) and Yamini Ramesh(vocal) who reside in  New Zealand.