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Interested in hosting a SPIC-MACAY event in your city?

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SPIC-MACAY Brings Classical Indian Music to a Diverse US Audience

SPIC-MACAY (Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth) wants you to get involved and host an event in your city!

SPIC-MACAY was started in the late 1970s by IITKGPF board member Arjun Malhotra (1970/B.Tech/ECE) and KGPian Kiran Seth (1970/B.Tech/ME). As Arjun told it, he was sitting in his mother's house on a winter afternoon with Kiran Seth (IITKGP Prof. B D Seth's son), the late Barbie Barua (then President of Hindu college), and the late Mahendra Mallu (then MD of Haryana Breweries). While they were together, they discussed how western pop culture was what the youth (including themselves) were adopting. Arjun stated, "We wanted the youth to at least understand our own music and culture.” That conversation sparked the formation of SPIC-MACAY. 

In the beginning, Kiran Seth was the driving force and Arjun (who was the Vice Chairman of HCL) helped get funding from HCL to publicize the concerts they had organized in schools and colleges across India. To support SPIC-MACAY's mission, top artists were willing to perform for free. For his contribution to the arts, Dr. Kiran Seth (currently a Professor-Emeritus at IIT-Delhi) was awarded the 'Padma Shri' in 2009.

SPIC-MACAY’s philosophy is to enrich the quality of formal education by increasing awareness about different aspects of Indian heritage and inspiring young minds to imbibe the values embedded in it. It seeks to inspire youth through experiencing the mysticism embodied in the rich and heterogeneous cultural tapestry of Indian and World Heritage, with a hope that the beauty, grace, values, and wisdom embodied in these arts will influence their way of life and thinking, and inspire them to become better human beings. To support this effort, the most accomplished artists of the country render programs of Indian classical music, dance, folk, poetry, theater, traditional paintings, crafts, and yoga in schools and colleges across India. In 2011, SPIC-MACAY was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana award in recognition of its contribution to youth development.

Today, SPIC-MACAY is a non-political, Indian-born, international, voluntary movement. Every year, SPIC-MACAY arranges more than 5000 programs in more than 1500 institutions. These programs can be found across almost 1000 cities, touching over 3 million students.

In recent years, SPIC-MACAY has expanded to the USA with 16 US chapters that include more selective Ivy League schools. SPIC-MACAY has held concerts by leading, Indian classical music and dance maestros in these locations. As illustrated in the poster, SPIC-MACAY (USA) is hosting an upcoming event at Cornell University. If you don't have time to attend Cornell's event and are interested in hosting an event in your university or city, please contact SPIC-MACAY’s (USA) Natasha Sodhi at sodhi.natasha@gmail.com or Meenakshi Khazanchi (Executive Director, IITKGP USA) at iitkgpfoundation@gmail.com.

 






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