Classically Yours

“Every music channel I came across in India,I had to listen to Bollywood songs. So I thought why not create a channel that airs music other than Bollywood,” says Tagde,who apart from hiring researchers to look at the market also interacted with students in Indian colleges to find out if they would be interested in classical content. “They were scared of classical music and most of them asked for simplification of the genre through interactive shows,” says Tagde.

Soon the violinist found out that the carriage fee was high and that niche channels were not viable in India. “Though a large number of Indians listen to Bollywood music,I do believe that there is a market for classical and semi-classical genres,” says Tagde,who admits one of his major challenges was that he did not have much video content available. “Many recordings,even in the Doordarshan archives are audio files. Whatever few video concerts are available,are in old formats and can’t be supported by today’s digital systems,” says Tagde.

To overcome this,Tagde,apart from collecting the already recorded concerts,has roped in a series of musicians including Ustad Rashid Khan,percussionist Taufiq Qureshi Vijay Ghate and Suresh Talwalkar,flautist Rajesh Prasanna to record shows inside studios. He is also looking at relaying content from private music albums,Bollywood songs based on classical ragas and concerts featuring semi-classical forms including thumris,ghazals,and tappas. Tagde has also created

‘Fusion Cafe’,a show which will telecast Indian classical concerts featuring collaborations with international artistes.

In spite of hiccups,Tagde is optimistic about the channel finding its audience. “The analog era offered limited capacity but digitisation is a game-changer. This gives me hope that niche channels will survive,” says Tagde. We will be tuning in.