A music festival honouring a composer, a Maharaja Swathi Tirunal (1813-1846) who faced the music of wrath from the British because of his independent nature - despite that he tried to introduce all that was modern and good in their administrative system to Travancore - his frustration and helplessness driving him close to Almighty and that produced such gems of compositions in all the different formats of the two great Indian classical systems viz. Hindustani & Carnatic.

His not having a shishyaparampara (series of students) unlike Thyagaraja and the other two of the Trinities was a handicap in popularising his music, they were known mainly to dancers all over the world.

Some two decades ago the Kerala Govt decided to give an award "Swathi Puraskaram" and conducted a festival at the Puthen Malika (popularly known as Kuthiramalika or horse palace because of the 122? wooden horses supporting the south side of the beautiful mansion built just a couple of years before the Maharaja passed away - now run as a museum)

Unfortunately, as governments do the festival was moved at extremely short notice of three weeks to mofussil places like Wayanad and Kannur in Kerala. Lots and lots of overseas visitors to Kerala had started timing their visit to Kerala to include this festival. So in 2000 January, my son and my wife decided to conduct a festival just for that year so that those visitors who planned to be at Kuthiramalika would not face a blank week.

From then it has been a privilege to conduct the Swathi Sangeethotsavam at the PuthenMalika in Thiruvananathapuram (dates were re-adjusted taking into account feedback both from artists as well as overseas visitors to a slot of seven days 6th to 12th January every year.

The ground work is done by my son a musician, teacher and organiser - Rama Varma with some assistance of his mother and a handful of volunteers, small financial help from a few banks and some individuals and institutions - but strictly on condition that the atmosphere or ambience of the venue is not marred by the sponsors' displays.

While great concerts are presented free to the lovers of music and expenses born by the organisers we think of this as a token of a New Year gift to the lovers of music from around in the world.

SWATHI SANGEETHOTSAVAM

6 pm Every Evening

Kuthiramalika - Fort Palace Complex

Jan 06 Vocal : Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Jan 07 (Violin Duet) Sr. Mahadeva Sarma & Sr.Rajasree

Jan 08 Vocal : Vidya Kalyanaraman

Jan 09 Vocal : Prince Rama Varma

Jan 10 Vocal : Amrutha Venkatesh

Jan 11 (Hindustani Vocal) Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty & Party

Jan 12 Vocal : R. K. Padmanabha

Email : kuthiramalika@gmail.com