In 1953 Sri Krishna Gana Sabha came into being under the stewardship of Sri Maharajapuram Santhanam with
his illustrious father, Sri Maharajapuram Vishwanatha Iyer, as
Founder-President. At the beginning, it was housed in the open-air theatre
of The Hindi Prachar Sabha, T.Nagar and thereafter for sometime at Thakkar Baba Vidyalaya. In
the year 1957, the Sabha came to reside in the
vacant plot , adjacent to the Nalli Cloth Stores, on
Nageswara Rao Road
.
In 1956-57, Sri R. Yagnaraman, having been connected with the Sabha from its inception as a Committee Member and
Joint Secretary, took over as General Secretary; It was during his Secretaryship in 1961, that the 3–year old
thatched “kottagai” arrangement
adjacent to Nalli Shop grew to a semi-permanent
structure, at Griffith Road (now known as Maharajapuram Santhanam Salai), on a
leased 10 ground plot with an accommodation of 900 chairs.
Mrs. Prema Hariharan rendered the invocation song at the time of Bhoomi Puja of this renovation.
In 2001, the Sabha was renovated,
through the stellar efforts of Sri R Yagnaraman and the munificent contributions of Dr Nalli Kuppuswami Chetty especially,
and those of various organizations as well as the general public. The
renovation involved retaining the existing structure, dias and building around it to give a classical Chettinad / Tanjore architectural flavor. The auditorium
was renamed as “Dr Nalli Gana Vihar” in
recognition of Dr Nalli's contributions to the
effort. The air-conditioning of the auditorium was undertaken in 2004 completing
the renovation in its entirety.
The Sabha’s Ethos
The fundamental aim of the Sabha is to inculcate the taste for the classical fine arts, especially Carnatic music, and to encourage young talents and
present them to future generations, to arrange literary discourse
periodically and to run a music school to teach classical music through the
Guru-Sishya tradition.
The Website
In this website, you will find a rich expanse of information
about the Sabha, the people behind it, its various festivals, awards, music releases and so on.
You can also find a unique selection of rare articles and photographs from
the sabha's archives. Please leave your comments
in our Guestbook.
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