The Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival [pronounced thya’-“garage”-ah] is the largest classical music event outside India. Every year, more than 10,000 fans from all over the world come to Cleveland State University for the 12-day festival that features carnatic music, the traditional classical music of South India.
The festival began in 1978 as just a single carnatic concert put on in a church basement by Indian immigrants in Cleveland, V.V. Sundaram and R. Balasubramaniam. (Most people know them as “Cleveland Balu” and “Cleveland Sundaram,” nicknames derived from a South Indian tradition of including a person’s village in their name.) In 1979, Cleveland State University music professor Tom Tuttle suggested bringing the concert to CSU, thus beginning a partnership between the school and the Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival that has lasted ever since.
Cleveland Sundaram’s son, Gopi Sundaram, and Cleveland Balu’s daughter, Radhika Balasubramaniam, are now two of the festival’s top organizers.
Love Cleveland? So do we! Explore more things to do in Cleveland.
‘Performing in Cleveland is like performing at the Kennedy Center’
The Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival has earned a reputation among Indian classical musicians around the world as the place to play. Indian children practice all year hoping to be chosen to participate in the festival’s music competition. “Performing in Cleveland is like performing at the Kennedy Center for these musicians,” explained Gopi. “And we have fans that show up because they’re like, ‘hey, you know what, I come to Cleveland because I may get introduced to the next major star.’”
I asked Gopi and Radhika, what makes the Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival so special?
“I think the difference in Cleveland [is] twofold,” said Gopi. “[For] one, we really do focus not just on bringing professional musicians from India and showcasing them, but also, we specifically go after musicians who, you know, they’re great musicians, but they’re not necessarily popular musicians, right? It’s nice to be able to say, ‘Oh yeah, I heard them before they got big.’”
“We also bring a lot of musicians when they are starting out,” explained Radhika. “We have amazing music that you may not have heard of, as well as the ones who are new and starting out, and this may be their launching point.”
‘Do I hear…Tool?’
I spent much of my day at the festival interviewing Indian classical music vocalists Akshara Samskriti and Kiranavali to learn how to listen to carnatic music. Here’s the audio story featuring those interviews:
Later that night, about 45 minutes into a concert, I found myself thinking, ‘Do I hear…Tool?’
After the show, Akshara confirmed that there are similarities between carnatic music and the music of the American hard rock band.
“I think what Tool utilizes a lot is mixing rhythms and non-standard numbers. Typically we do four/four as your traditional [time signature]….What Tool ends up doing a lot is [using] unconventional numbers, like five, or nine, or thirteen. They get utilized a lot. And in carnatic music, we have some of these values pre-established. So we do have our traditional four patterns, but we also have fives, sevens and nines.”
The Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival is happening now through Sunday, April 27, at Cleveland State University. Performances run all day, usually from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. Most are free to attend.
