MUMBAI: In a move that’s probably been long due for Indian musicians, awards that recognise ‘music’ in its totality may just be around the corner.
Indian Music Academy (IMA) is planning to organize an annual music award ceremony in February 2010. The awards will recognise commendable work in genres like Carnatic, Sufi, Bhajans, Ghazals, folk, Qawalli, Indi pop, Indi rock and film music. In addition, the award will also honour sound engineers and technicians
Even though IMA has been largely associated with popularizing classical music, Art and Artistes Director Durga Jasraj who is ideating IMA Music Awards puts the record straight, “We appreciate every kind of music and every genre – be it film, non-film or rock,” she says.
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As far as the jury goes, every genre will be having a four member jury. It is learnt that music experts like Leslie Lewis, Luke Kenny, Pandit Ajay Pohankar, Uttam Singh, Kuldeep Singh and Sridhar Parthasarathy are on the jury. In all, a 27 member jury will have their say in shortlisting the winners.
Jasraj explains how the songs/music will be categorised in genres, “For instance, the a song like Manmohana (of Yuvraaj) can be nominated under bhajans…
Though Indian musicians have received countless accolades internationally, on home turf, recognition to them only comes through various existent Bollywood awards – most believe the non-film scenario remains largely ignored due to this.
Mohit Chauhan, who started his career with rock band Silk Route and later moved into film singing, says the last recognition he received for his non-film work was in 1998. However, Chauhan seems optimistic about the idea, “I think such an award will definitely give some kind of official acknowledgement to singers and musicians who work on ghazals, sufi music, rock music or any other genre – because otherwise they are hardly recognized.”
While Channel [V] and MTV were known to recognise non-film music in their initial years, they were discontinued after some years. Perhaps, the only music awards we have at present are the ‘Mirchi Music Awards’ started by Radio Mirchi. However Jasraj expresses her discontent as she feels awards often get marred by commercialisation, “Many people are trying to create award as TV software’s, hopefully, we will try to understand what the musicians are trying to do and motivate them annually for their work,” says Jasraj.
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