In an effort to preserve century-old recordings of live classical music performances, Saptak Archives has convened the first ever national music conference in the city on June 27. As many as 16 musicologists from Mumbai, Delhi and other cities will discuss new ways of preserving recordings at the conference.
Praful Anubhai of Saptak, said, “We plan to combine various expertise and strengths and exchange information about techniques. The databases that musicologists have with them will be merged into a single source making it a national collection of 100-year-old performances.” The conference will be unique because government authorities and technology experts will attend it to help in the preservation effort.
Experts from Sangeet Natak Academy, New Delhi have also been invited. In three sessions new techniques to preserve and digitize music will be discussed. “We will look at ways to disseminate the entire collection and issues of copyright,” Anubhai said. With this, rare recordings would be available too more music lovers.
Another much-needed feature Saptak has tried to incorporate in the archives is profiles of performers, details of ragas rendered, history of music lineage the artists belong to and details of performances with names of accompanists, place and year. With a few clicks, listeners would not only relive decades-old concerts but also get additional information.
Saptak Archives started the first ever digitalized classical music library in the state in December last year. The library, which contains more than 15,000 recordings, has many hidden gems including the renditions of Mongubai Kurdiker, an undiscovered music maestro and mother of renowned vocalist Kishori Amonkar. Her renditions are seldom available on the shelves of music stores.
