Margazhi, with its cool dawns and resonant evenings, is beginning to transform the city into a living concert hall. Ragas and timeless compositions are passing through the walls of sabhas, echoing through the corridors, and down the roads.

For generations, music and crowds during this season have spilled out of The Music Academy Madras too — a space where tradition and creativity meet. The academy is known for nurturing legendary maestros, encouraging young prodigies, and preserving the rich legacy of Carnatic music. Standing just one year away from completing a glorious century, this year’s line-up combines pride and anticipation.

Inaugurating the 99th Annual Conference and Concerts on Monday, was chief guest AR Rahman, along with the president and vice president of Music Academy N Murali and R Srinivasan respectively, singers Bombay Jayashri and TM Krishna, and violinist and Sangita Kalanidhi RK Shriramkumar.

Before beginning his address, Rahman, fondly called the Mozart of Madras, glanced across the audience and took in the scene before him: a sea of seasoned faces, with barely a quarter of the gathering made up of the young. Pausing on this quiet contrast, he chose to address it. “How do we get them (the youth) in? This has been my task for the past 10 years. I have been working on script ideas, how to make a movie in a raga, and all these crazy ideas which I never told anyone. How do we reinvent the experience of classical music? It can’t be just stuck to Music Academy, or RR Academy or Vani Mahal. It has to go around the world and people need to experience this in a way where they get enthralled and immersed,” he said.

He observed that even in an age dominated by AI and social media, the depth and richness of human experience remain undeniably superior. It is this truth, he said, that gives the performing arts their enduring relevance. To keep traditions alive and vibrant, he stressed the need to reinvent how they are presented so as to draw new audiences, energise the cultural economy, attract tourists, and instil a renewed sense of pride in our heritage.

Urging listeners to become ambassadors of the arts, he invited them to think beyond preservation and towards transcendence: how our traditions can travel, resonate, and flourish across the world. “The creation and knowledge of music are one part,” he noted, “but presenting and marketing it in a way that the world can experience and enjoy is an equally important task.”